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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


^- 


CITY  LIFE  AND 
ITS  AMELIORATION 


BY 


GEORGE   SHARP 


BOSTON:   RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

THE     COPP    CLARK     CO.,     LIMITED,     TORONTO 


(copyright,  1915,  by  Richard  G.  Badger 


All   Rights  Reserved 


Thb  Gorham  Press,  Boston,  U.  S.  A. 


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PREFACE 

This  little  book  is  not  so  ambitious  as  its  title 
might  imply.  Its  affirmations  are  founded,  for 
the  most  part,  upon  observations  and  experiences 
of  the  author  during  an  aggregate  period  of  twen- 
ty years  spent  in  many  of  our  large  cities  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  After  a  discussion  of  the 
limitations  of  life  in  the  city,  suggestions  are  made 
looking  to  the  amelioration  of  the  harsh  condi- 
tions of  that  life.  It  is  hoped  that  in  some  slight 
degree  the  effort  may  help  to  usher  in  that  better 
day  for  which  patient  humanity  ever  longs.  For 
the  rest  let  the  book  speak  for  itself. 

George  Sharp. 

Boston,  January,  19 15. 


CONTENTS 
Chapter  Page 

I.   Preliminary  Considerations 9 

II.  What  is  it  to  Live? 23 

III.   Superficiality  and  Frivolity 36 

IV.   Childhood  in  the  City 51 

V.  Public  Manners    68 

VI.   Publicity:  Good  and  Bad 86 

VII.    Fellowship    102 


CITY  LIFE  AND  ITS  AMELIORATION 


CITY  LIFE  AND  ITS 
AMELIORATION 

CHAPTER  I 
Preliminary  Considerations 

OUR  cities  have  grown  so  rapidly,  the 
methods  of  doing  business  in  them  have 
changed  so  radically,  and  the  gulf  be- 
tween the  rich  and  the  poor  has  wid- 
ened so  far,  that  our  old-time  Jelifersonian  ideas  of 
the  proper  limits  of  governmental  activity  are  be- 
ing abandoned,  or,  at  least. greatly  modified.  We 
are  realizing  (to  use  a  hackneyed  expression)  that 
it  is  "a  condition  and  not  a  theory  that  confronts 
us;"  that  the  city,  the  State,  the  general  govern- 
ment, as  organisms,  must  evolve  and  exercise  pow- 
ers undreamed  of  in  our  earlier  history. 

Now  the  policy  we  have  been  pursuing,  both  in 
national  and  city  affairs,  has  been  paradoxical. 
Professing  dislike  and  even  fear  of  governmental 
aggression,  we  have  nevertheless  enacted  a  wilder- 
ness of  laws.  Mr.  Bryce,  in  his  learned  work, 
"The  American  Commonwealth,"  has  devoted  a 
short  chapter  to  the  doctrine  of  laisscz  faire  as 
practised  in  America.  With  his  usual  breadth  of 
view  he  is  careful,  after  remarking  on  the  dominant 

9 


lo     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

desire  of  the  American  "to  be  let  alone,  to  do  as 
he  pleases,  Indulge  his  Impulses,  follow  out  his 
projects," — to  call  attention  to  some  Institutional 
laws,  State  and  Federal,  which,  he  declares,  go 
quite  as  far  In  the  direction  of  state  action  as  do 
the  laws  of  the  Old  World  countries.  What  Mr. 
Bryce  Is  pleased  to  denominate  one  of  the  five 
"ground  Ideas,"  or  dogmas,  that  prevail  In  the 
United  States,  he  sets  forth  In  the  following  felici- 
tous words:  "The  less  of  government  the  better; 
that  Is  to  say,  the  fewer  occasions  for  Interfering 
with  the  Individual  citizens  are  allowed  to  officials, 
and  the  less  time  citizens  have  to  spend  In  looking 
after  their  officials,  so  much  the  more  will  the  citi- 
zens and  the  community  prosper.  The  functions 
of  government  must  be  kept  at  their  minimum." 
To  this  statement  of  the  American's  attitude 
toward  his  government  no  exception,  It  seems  to 
me,  can  be  taken,  for  It  Is  both  comprehensive  and 
just;  although  It  was  more  true  twenty-five  years 
ago  when  Mr.  Bryce  wrote  his  book  than  It  Is  now. 
It  is  when  this  learned  expositor  of  our  Institutions 
seeks  to  show  the  other  side  of  the  picture,  to  pre- 
sent evidence  of  a  great  curtailment  by  governmen- 
tal action  of  this  Individual,  this  e very-man- for- 
hlmself  policy,  that  his  success  Is  more  apparent 
than  real.  He  classifies  Intervention  under  the  fol- 
lowing heads : — 

"Prohibition  to  Individuals  to  do  acts  which  are 
not,  In  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  criminal  (e. 
g.  to  sell  intoxicating  liquors,  to  employ  a  laborer 


PRELIMINARY  CONSIDERATIONS  ii 

for  more  than  so  many  hours  in  a  day) . 

"Directions  to  individuals  to  do  things  which  it 
is  not  obviously  wrong  to  omit  (e.  g.  to  provide 
seats  for  shop-women,  to  publish  the  accounts  of  a 
railway  company). 

"Interferences  with  the  ordinary  course  of  law 
in  order  to  protect  individuals  from  the  conse- 
quences of  their  own  acts  (e.  g.  the  annulment  of 
contracts  between  employer  and  workmen  making 
the  former  not  liable  for  accidental  injuries  to  the 
latter,  the  exemption  of  homesteads,  or  of  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  personal  property,  from  the  claims 
of  creditors,  the  prohibition  of  more  than  a  cer- 
tain rate  of  interest  on  money). 

"In  every  one  of  these  kinds  of  legislative  inter- 
ference the  Americans,  or  at  least  the  Western 
States,  seem  to  have  gone  further  than  the  Eng- 
lish Parliament.  The  restrictions  on  the  liquor 
traffic  have  been  more  sweeping;  those  upon  the 
labor  of  women  and  children,  and  of  persons  em- 
ployed by  the  State,  not  less  so.  Moral  duties  are 
more  frequently  enforced  by  legal  penalties  than 
in  England.  Railroads,  insurance  and  banking 
companies,  and  other  corporations  are,  in  most 
States,  strictly  regulated." 

Certainly  these  specifications  of  laws  enacted 
would  seem  to  give  government  in  America  a  good 
bill  of  character;  and,  to  a  reader  unfamiliar  with 
the  way  "business"  is  done  here,  they  might  con- 
vey the  impression  that  the  activity  of  the  individ- 
ual is  very  much  hampered  by  the  statutes.     But  it 


1 2     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

would  be  hard  to  imagine  anything  further  from 
the  truth.  The  statutes,  those  legislative  enact- 
ments designed  to  supplement  the  old  common  law, 
prolific  as  they  are — the  annual  out-put  being  far 
greater  here  than  in  Europe,  as  was  pointed  out  in 
a  learned  address  by  the  Hon.  Alton  B.  Parker  be- 
fore the  American  Bar  Association — are,  for  the 
most  part,  local  laws;  and  the  objection  to  them  is 
directed  against  their  enactment  by  the  legislature 
instead  of  by  the  county  and  city  departments 
rather  than  against  their  intrinsic  qualities.  Laws 
that  have  to  do  with  the  ministrant  functions  of 
government,  as  distinguished  from  the  constituent 
functions,  have  been  few  enough.  When  contrast- 
ed with  the  institutional  laws  that  have  given  near- 
ly every  other  civilized  people  on  earth  the  own- 
ership and  operation  of  railroads,  telegraphs, 
tramways  and  express  carriage,  together  with  local 
public  utilities  in  general,  the  paucity  here  is 
marked.  In  respect  to  such  laws  the  attitude  of 
our  "business  man,"  the  dominant  force  in  Amer- 
ica, is  well  expressed  by  Mr.  N.  P.  Oilman  when 
he  says  in  his  "Socialism  and  the  American  Spirit:" 
"The  American  is  always  ready  to  receive  help 
from  the  State  in  starting  a  railway  or  a  steamship 
line  (the  old  flag  and  an  appropriation),  but  he 
is  not  at  all  inclined  to  consider  the  Government  a 
proper  agent  for  the  management  or  ownership  of 
either." 

But  quite  aside   from  the  consideration  either 
of  the  number  or  the  kind  of  laws  on  the  statute 


PRELIMINARY  CONSIDERATIONS  13 

bo(3ks  as  affecting  the  question  how  far  govern- 
ment has  gone  in  America  in  restricting  and  re- 
straining the  individual,  there  is  one  consideration 
which  Mr.  Bryce  seems  to  have  overlooked,  at 
least  in  his  chapter  on  laissez  faire,  and  which 
throws  a  very  different  light  on  the  whole  subject. 
I  refer  to  the  evasion  and  violation  of  the  laws 
by  the  individual  and  to  their  non-enforcement  by 
the  government.  In  no  respect  more  than  in  this 
does  the  real  situation  reveal  itself;  in  nothing  is 
it  more  effectually  shown  how  slight  has  been  the 
governmental  interference  in  our  land,  how  com- 
plete, on  the  contrary,  has  been  the  reign  of  the 
individual.  Mr.  Bryce  mentions  our  laws  regu- 
lating the  sale  of  intoxicating  beverages.  But 
what  single  law,  excepting  the  one  providing  for 
the  payment  of  a  license  to  do  business, — what 
single  law  in  reference  to  the  whole  liquor  traffic 
— is  complied  with?  From  the  adulteration  of 
the  drink  to  its  sale  to  minors,  the  law  is  every- 
where trampled  and  spat  upon.  Some  of  our  laws 
do  provide  for  an  eight-hour  work  day  on  govern- 
ment work.  But  recent  investigation  showed  that 
no  pretense  of  a  compliance  with  the  law  was  ever 
made  by  contractors  with  the  government.  It  was 
only  after  the  most  persistent  demands  by  the  la- 
bor organizations  that  it  was  agreed  and  an- 
nounced through  a  megaphone  (just  before  an 
election)  that  the  law  would  be  enforced.  Again, 
it  is  true  we  have  laws  prohibiting  the  charging  of 
excessive  interest  on  money.     Such  laws  have  long 


14     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

been  in  existence  in  every  State,  but  we  all  know 
how  impotent  they  are.  Every  money-lender 
knows  how  to  get  around  them.  The  recent  ex- 
posures of  the  inhumanity  of  the  "loan-sharks"  in 
New  York  and  Boston,  in  defiant  violation  of  law, 
causing,  in  many  cases,  nervous  break-down  and 
even  the  suicide  of  their  poor  victims,  show  a  state 
of  things  that  makes  our  boasted  civilization  look 
like  savage  barbarism.  We  have  laws,  too,  against 
child  labor;  but  they  have  been  practically  dead 
letters.  Every  now  and  then  the  public  is  duly  hor- 
rified to  learn  that  a  million  children  are  being  un- 
lawfully employed  in  the  mines  and  factories  of 
our  country. 

There  has  been  quite  as  marked  a  contrast  be- 
tween the  law  and  its  observance  in  the  case  of 
some  of  the  railroad  ,  insurance,  and  banking  com- 
panies,— institutions  the  magnitude  of  whose  bus- 
iness in  this  country  dwarfs  the  total  fiscal  opera- 
tions of  many  of  the  governments  of  the  earth. 
Railroads,  by  means  of  discriminating  rates  and 
service  have  torn  down  the  fortunes  of  one  man 
and  built  up  those  of  another,  and  have  even  built 
up  one  city  at  the  expense  of  another;  while  out  of 
the  public  lands  unlawfully  appropriated  by  them 
a  State  could  be  formed,  so  far  as  the  extent  of 
domain  is  concerned.  We  have  seen  the  oflicials 
of  insurance  and  banking  companies  creating  out 
of  the  policy  holders'  money  "yellow  dog"  funds 
(presumably  because  the  law  was  silent  on  the  sub- 
ject of  yellow  dogs)    and  with  them  corrupting 


PRELIMINARY  CONSIDERATIONS  15 

legislatures  and  contributing  campaign  funds  to  a 
political  party  with  which  to  debauch  elections. 
How  many  more  kinds  of  irregularities,  to  put  it 
mildly,  the  officers  of  these  and  other  corporations 
have  indulged  in,  first  and  last,  will  never  be 
known.  It  is  said  that  nine-tenths  of  an  ice-berg 
is  under  water,  and  therefore  never  seen;  so  it 
may  be  with  the  operations  of  the  railroad,  insur- 
ance and  banking  companies.  Thus  we  have  an 
explanation  of  the  paradox  of  large  personal  lib- 
erty in  a  network  of  law.  If  the  reader  insists 
that  the  word  liberty  as  here  used  should  have 
quotation  marks  around  it,  that,  in  fact,  it  means 
license,  I  will  not  quarrel  with  him,  for  I  am  of  the 
same  opinion. 

What  are  we  doing  about  it?  That  in  law  en- 
forcement and  progressive  legislation  lie  the  safe- 
ty and  well-being  of  society  the  people  are  begin- 
ning to  realize.  Just  now  the  echoes  of  righteous 
complaints,  stifled  some  years  ago,  are  causing  a 
stir  in  the  land.  Every  reader  of  the  newspapers 
knows  this,  though  it  is  a  pity  he  has  not  felt  the 
good  effects  as  yet  in  his  market-basket,  in  the  hon- 
esty of  the  goods  he  buys,  in  shorter  hours  of  la- 
bor, and  in  some  other  things  that  have  to  do  with 
his  existence. 

Whether  this  movement  for  better  conditions  is 
an  awakening,  as  some  enthusiastic  people  believe, 
or  merely  a  turning  over  in  our  sleep,  time  will 
tell.  We  had  an  experience  similar  in  many  re- 
spects to  the  present  more  than  a  generation  ago. 


1 6     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

At  that  time  the  air  was  thick  with  scandals  grow- 
ing out  of  eight  years  of  malfeasance  in  office. 
Then,  as  now,  the  people  were  aroused,  and  by 
a  great  popular  majority  they  chose  a  reformer  to 
be  their  president.  But  a  thimblerigging  Elector- 
al Commission,  wholly  unauthorized  by  the  Con- 
stitution, counted  him  out  of  office,  and  the  people 
were  deprived  of  a  chance  to  have  a  house-clean- 
ing. 

Let  us  hope  there  will  be  no  relapse  in  the  move- 
ment now  in  progress.  There  is  at  least  a  show 
of  earnestness  about  it.  Men  high  in  official  posi- 
tion,— governors,  congressmen,  mayors  and  pros- 
ecutors, who  in  the  past  were  never  suspected  of 
being  disloyal  to  the  "interests"  that  put  them  in 
office,  are  just  now  doing  strange  things,  remind- 
ing one  of  the  rat-killing  feat  of  the  Pied  Piper. 
And  after  each  act  they  stride  across  the  stage  of 
public  notice,  acknowledging  with  bows  and  smiles 
the  plaudits  of  the  people  for  sticking  their  spears 
into  the  Trust  Dragons.  We  even  have  the  amus- 
ing spectacle  of  constables  and  councilmen  shaking 
their  fists  (through  press  interviews)  at  John  D. 
Rockefeller.  Occasionally  a  promoter  of  the 
trusts  themselves,  a  federal  judge,  whose  decisions 
have  provoked  resentment,  a  prominent  lawyer, 
whose  business  it  has  been  to  defend  employers 
against  their  employees,  kick  up  their  heels  and 
announce  their  purpose  to  serve  the  people  hence- 
forth. At  a  meeting  of  governors  in  New  Jersey 
approval  was  given    to    doctrines    and    measures 


PRELIMINARY  CONSIDERATIONS  17 

which  a  few  years  ago  were  looked  upon  as  the 
wild-eyed  vagaries  of  irresponsible  agitators,  which 
no  man  high  in  office  would  have  dared  to  cham- 
pion, even  if  he  had  bothered  his  head  about  them. 

Quite  as  noticeable  is  the  change  in  the  tone  of 
our  periodicals.  Twenty-five  years  ago  magazines 
were  few,  compared  with  the  present  number,  and 
were  published  for  the  educated  and  leisure  classes. 
They  were  transcendental  rather  than  empirical; 
mundane  matters  were  viewed  at  arm's  length;  to 
get  down  into  the  "mire  of  politics"  was  in  bad 
form.  But  how  different  it  is  today !  Dignity  is 
cast  to  the  winds.  It  is  circulation  that  counts, 
and  "muck-raking"  has  become  the  order  of  the 
day.    And  it  is  a  good  thing  it  has,  too. 

The  exposure  of  inefficiency,  waste  and  dishon- 
esty is  having  a  needful  effect  upon  the  voter.  He 
is  getting  his  eyes  open.  He  is  beginning  to  cast 
off  party  ties,  even  as  he  dropped  out  of  torch- 
light processions  thirty  years  ago.  He  is  begin- 
ning to  regard  the  office  holder  as  his  servant  rath- 
er than  his  master;  albeit,  he  manifests  an  astonish- 
ing degree  of  whimsicality  in  giving  his  orders. 
Will  the  initiative  and  recall  sober  him  into  stabil- 
ity, or  will  they  make  him  even  more  fickle? 

Some  fifteen  years  ago  a  writer  made  the  bold 
assertion,  very  much  ridiculed  at  the  time,  that 
there  had  not  been  a  real  statesman  in  office  since 
the  Civil  War.  While  such  a  declaration  was  some- 
what hyperbolic,  yet  in  the  light  of  what  has  since 
taken   place,   considering,   that  is,   the   change   of 


1 8     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

front  of  our  office-holders  and  aspirants  for  office 
all  along  the  line,  there  was  much  truth  in  the  as- 
sertion. Looking  back  over  years  not  so  long  gone 
by,  we  now  see  that  men  high  in  official  position 
whom  we  called  statesmen,  were  simply  politi- 
cians; their  chief  concern  was  to  retain,  rather 
than  to  acceptably  fill,  office.  Politics  was  a  game  to 
be  played  like  chess,  and  the  most  skilful  politician 
or  party  won.  The  great  mass  of  voters  being 
sunk  in  stupid  partisanship,  prejudices  were  more 
potent  than  principles.  It  is  safe  to  say  that,  dur- 
ing the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  four  out  of  five 
intelligent  men  of  all  parties  have  really  been  in 
favor  of  certain  reforms, — the  reasonable  reduc- 
tion of  the  tariff,  an  income  tax,  the  election  of 
United  States  Senators  by  popular  vote,  and  a  doz- 
en other  reforms;  yet,  at  the  behest  of  the  powers 
that  be  in  their  respective  parties,  because  of  par- 
tisanship, in  other  words,  they  have  been  fighting 
each  other  on  these  very  issues.  Had  men  disfran- 
chised themselves,  they  could  scarcely  hav^e  done 
more  to  perpetuate  abuses  and  obstruct  reforms 
than  they  have  done  by  a  blind  adherence  to  party. 
Such  being  the  attitude  of  the  electorate,  no  new 
things  of  vital  importance  were  considered  by  the 
office-holders.  Afraid  to  grapple  with  the  real  is- 
sues of  the  day,  they  made  a  virtue  of  cowardice 
and  boasted  of  being  "stand-patters."  Their 
speeches  were  of  the  "spread-eagle"  sort,  consist- 
ing of  "glittering  generalities"  that  pointed  out  no 
remedy.     If  anybody  did  rise  to  demand  a  specific 


PRELIMINARY  CONSIDERATIONS  19 

remedy  for  wrongs,  he  and  his  followers  were  ridi- 
culed and  caricatured  till  they  became  discouraged 
and  disgusted,  and  quit.  Witness  the  fate  of  the 
Populists.  Here  was  a  body  of  men  who  had  suf- 
fered and  thought,  and  who  had  ideas  about  reme- 
dies. But  they  were  charged,  forsooth,  with  wear- 
ing whiskers,  and  so  every  cunning  politician  in 
the  land  that  held  office  by  grace  of  the  "interests" 
clapped  his  hands  and  set  the  sycophants,  together 
with  the  great  amoeba  class  of  voters,  yelping  after 
these  Populists.  And  thus  "safe  and  sane"  politics 
prevailed,  and  "national  honor"  triumphed.  Even 
at  a  much  later  time,  in  the  face  of  a  popular  de- 
mand for  action  on  the  tariff.  Congress  voted  to 
await  the  report  of  a  committee  of  non-members 
and  adjourned!  It  is  still  the  proper  strategy  for 
an  administration,  the  party  in  power,  when  the 
people  clamor  too  loudly  for  relief,  to  hang  the 
matter  up  in  some  such  commission. 

Thus,  having  been  neither  qualified  nor  obliged 
to  take  definite  and  summary  action  on  problems 
that  press  for  solution,  our  official  class,  especially 
in  national  politics,  have  learned  little  that  is  new. 
It  is  really  amusing  to  see  how  some  of  our  "states- 
men" are  taking  hold  of  the  real  issues  that  con- 
front the  American  people.  How  wildly  they  rush 
to  the  writings  of  the  radicals  to  learn  the  very 
meaning  of  the  terms  initiative,  referendum,  recall 
and  proportional  representation! 

In  this  matter  of  statesmanship  we  are  destined, 
if  I  mistake  not,  to  recast  our  ideas  very  material- 


20     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

ly.  At  the  present  time,  as  already  intimated,  we 
are  demanding  that  our  office-holders  actually  do 
something  for  the  good  of  the  people,  and  in  our 
impatience  we  are,  in  some  parts  of  the  country, 
taking  matters  into  our  own  hands  through  the  ini- 
tiative and  referendum.  The  keen  intellect  of  Sam- 
uel J.  Tilden  was  never  more  clearly  manifested 
than  in  his  masterful  letter  accepting  the  nomina- 
tion to  the  presidency.  In  that  letter  he  used  the 
following  language:  "There  is  no  necromancy  in 
the  operations  of  government.  The  homely  max- 
ims of  every-day  life  are  the  best  standards  of  its 
conduct."  How  true  it  is  that  there  is  no  necrom- 
ancy in  government  becomes  evident  upon  reflec- 
tion. The  service  of  the  people  through  common 
sense  rules, — what  more  is  there  to  it?  In  its 
practical  conduct  government  is  simply  a  matter 
of  business.  As  that  great  mind,  Thomas  A.  Edi- 
son, in  a  recent  interview  said,  "Governments  are 
just  huge  business  concerns."  While  for  the  high- 
est offices  greater  abilities  are,  as  a  rule,  though  not 
always,  needed  than  for  the  lower  ones,  yet  no  oc- 
cult or  magic  powers  are  required  for  the  conduct 
of  any  office.  Given  an  official  imbued  with  a  pur- 
pose to  serve  the  people,  and  he  will  be  required 
to  exercise  few  powers  that  would  not  be  called 
into  play  in  the  conduct  of  a  business  enterprise. 
Some  years  ago  Battling  Nelson,  the  pugilist,  as- 
pired to  be  mayor  of  his  home  town  in  Illinois, 
and  he  outlined  a  platform  of  principles  on  which 
he  would  conduct  the  office.    That  platform,  in  its 


PRELIMINARY  CONSIDERATIONS  21 

answer  to  the  needs  of  his  city,  would  compare 
favorably  with  any  that  a  so-called  statesman  might 
draft.  Considering  the  fighting  qualities  of  the 
Dane,  it  is  very  probable  that  had  he  become  may- 
or he  would  have  gone  far  in  applying  his  plat- 
form. 

But  there  is  a  further  stage  in  the  evolution  of 
political  ideas  which  will,  when  attained,  make  of- 
fice-holding statesmanship  seem  rudimentary.  So 
accustomed  have  we  become  to  associating  the  idea 
of  statesmanship  with  the  incumbency  of  a  high 
office  that  we  have  not  as  yet  conceived  of  the  le- 
gitimate scope  of  the  term.  Is  not  a  state's  man 
any  one  who  serves  his  state  in  a  political  capacity? 
Are  not  the  publicist  and  the  orator  who  discuss 
political  questions  and  advocate  the  application  of 
sound  principles  in  government,  though  they  may 
never  hold  office,  just  as  truly  statesmen  as  is  a 
United  States  Senator?  Who  will  deny  the  appel- 
lation of  statesman  to  the  late  Edward  M.  Shep- 
ard  or  to  Louis  Brandeis?  A  metropolitan  news- 
paper refers  to  a  former  member  of  the  United 
States  Senate  as  an  "ex-statesman;"  and  this  not- 
withstanding that  he  continues  to  devote  much  of 
his  time  to  the  public  welfare.  I  submit  that  this 
man  is  as  truly  a  statesman  today  as  when  he  was 
a  Senator.  Some  men  only  become  true  statesmen 
after  they  have  quit  office  and  have  no  ambition 
to  return;  for  then  they  see  public  questions  in  a 
different  light  and  discuss  them  with  more  freedom 
and  honesty. 


22     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

Pursuing  this  idea  further,  we  will  yet  realize 
that  not  even  great  names,  in  or  out  of  office,  are 
alone  to  be  coupled  with  statesmanship.  And  there 
will  come  a  time  when  cities  and  towns  will  have 
their  local  statesmen.  In  a  little  city  in  Ohio  there 
is  a  young  woman  who,  though  she  has  never  held 
office,  is  yet  an  authority  on  the  powers  and  duties 
of  municipal  officers,  and  is  frequently  consulted 
by  them.  Moreover,  she  is  at  the  head  of  a  civics 
study  club,  organized  by  her  efforts;  and  she  has 
settled  more  than  one  strike.  Shall  we  not  call 
this  lady  a  stateswoman? 


CHAPTER  II 

What  is  it  to  Live? 

CITY  life !  We  hear  this  expression  every 
day,  but  what  a  misnomer,  what  a  mock- 
ery the  phrase  is!  As  if  there  could  be 
any  life  where  everything  is  objective 
and  nothing  subjective;  where  the  individual  is 
swallowed  up  in  the  mass;  where  automatic  mo- 
tion takes  the  place  of  individual  action;  where 
personal  traits  are  not  to  be  looked  for,  because 
of  the  atrophy,  through  non-use,  of  the  powers 
needed  to  develop  them. 

Considerable  attention  has  been  paid  in  recent 
years  to  the  evils,  the  dangers,  of  the  city;  to  its 
intemperance,  its  immorality  and  its  crime;  to  the 
concentration  of  its  wealth,  and  the  prevalence  of 
its  poverty;  to  the  corruption  of  its  politics  and  to 
its  lawlessness.  These  phases  all  constitute  press- 
ing problems,  some  of  which  will  be  considered  in 
subsequent  pages  of  this  volume.  But  I  wish  here 
to  notice  the  one  distinguishing  evil  of  the  city,  an 
evil  that  is  nothing  less  than  a  blight.  In  propor- 
tion to  its  importance,  the  attention  given  to  it  has 
been  slight.  Far  worse,  because  more  pervasive, 
more  paralyzing  and  more  hopeless  than  the  Mis- 
eries of  Paris,  the  evils  set  forth  in  Darkest  Eng- 

23 


24     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

land,  the  Shame  of  the  Cities,  or  the  poverty  that 
explains  How  the  Other  Half  Lives,  is  the  absence 
of  any  real  life  by  the  automatons  conventionally 
called  men  and  women  who  make  up  the  city's 
population. 

What  Is  life,  and  what  is  it  to  live?  An  eminent 
biologist  has  likened  the  human  organism  to  a 
machine,  that  is,  "a  system  in  which  chemical  af- 
finities, especially  the  union  of  the  oxygen  of  the 
air  with  the  materials  of  alimentation,  produce 
heat,  electrity  and  muscular  work."  And  Virchow 
calls  life  "a  particular  kind  of  mechanics."  These 
are  excellent  definitions,  from  the  purely  physical 
point  of  view,  and,  together,  they  would  almost 
describe  the  city  people  and  their  motions.  But 
man  is,  or  should  be,  something  more  than  a  com- 
bination of  chemical  elements;  and  life  is,  or 
should  be,  more  than  mechanical  motion.  If  this 
is  not  so,  then  biography  is  a  fable,  and  history  a 
waste  of  words.  The  truth  is,  that,  as  applied  to 
man,  the  highest  part  and  product  of  nature,  it  is 
personality  that  counts.  Personality  is  that  which 
makes  us  say,  of  the  object  of  the  remark,  "Here 
is  this  or  that  kind  of  man."  Personality  is  that 
without  which  there  is  no  real  man.  It  is  the  em- 
bodiment of  character  and  of  charm,  of  reputa- 
tion and  of  aspiration;  and  to  live  is  to  possess  and 
develop  all  these  attributes.  Personality  is  man's 
greatest  asset,  for  it  is  nothing  less  than  the  man 
himself.  Take  from  man  his  personality  and  he 
loses  his  identity. 


WHAT  IS  IT  TO  LIVE?  25 

Now  personality  depends  upon  individuality, 
with  which  idea,  in  a  secondary  sense,  it  is  synony- 
mous. But  how  much  of  individuality  do  you  find 
in  a  big  city?    Very  little. 

When  applied  to  the  men  of  the  city  how  much 
truth  there  is  in  the  assertion  of  Jules  Payot  that 
"there  is  hardly  one  man  in  a  thousand  who  has 
real  personality.  Nearly  all  men  in  their  general 
conduct,  as  well  as  in  their  particular  actions,  are 
like  marionettes  drawn  together  by  a  combination 
of  forces  which  are  infinitely  more  powerful  than 
their  own.  They  no  more  live  an  individual  life 
than  does  a  piece  of  wood  which  is  tossed  into  the 
torrent,  and  which  is  carried  away  without  know- 
ing either  how  or  why."  Much  the  same  thought 
is  expressed  by  Dr.  Julia  Seton  Sears  who,  in  her 
admirable  little  book,  "Concentration,"  says:  "It 
is  interesting  to  notice  how  few  there  are  who  are 
really  in  control  of  their  own  minds.  The 
field  of  consciousness  is  open  to  every  kind  of  ran- 
dom, drifting  thought  forms;  and  many  carry 
around  minds  which  are  ready  to  receive  every 
negative  thing  that  is  projected  into  them  either  by 
individuals  or  conditions."  How  could  it  be  oth- 
erwise when  so  much  time  is  spent  amid  the  roar 
and  buzz  and  everchanging  scenes  of  a  big  city? 

Some  time  ago,  under  the  caption  "Burievl 
Alive,"  Collier's  Weekly  had  this  to  say,  in  pait, 
of  a  very  general  type  of  city  man : 

"From  earliest  youth  he  has  worked  in  offices, 
and  twenty  years  of  that  atmosphere  have  subdued 


26     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

him.  Those  trailing  years  have  enriched  him  with 
a  sHghtly  venomous  human  interest  in  those  about, 
the  timidity  born  of  routine  indoor  work,  the  ser- 
vility to  those  in  authority,  the  scorn  of  those  who 
work  in  ways  a  little  more  menial  than  that  of  his 
own  clerical  rut.  He  is  now  middle-aged,  mature, 
perfected.  He  has  become  pussy  footed,  has  ac- 
quired a  soft  voice,  a  purring,  apologetic  manner. 
He  walks  around  as  if  on  tiptoe,  peering  over 
desks,  gently  intruding  wherever  he  scents  the  faint 
beginnings  of  an  office  scandal.  In  his  soothing, 
low  pitched  voice  he  drops  venom  into  each  wait- 
ing ear  as  he  goes  up  and  down  the  office.  In  his 
work  there  is  little  to  which  he  looks  back  with 
pride.  A  thousand  weeks  of  filing  cards,  hammer- 
ing typewriters,  adding  up  columns  of  figures,  have 
not  left  him  with  blithe  memories  of  something 
accomplished,  something  done.  One  thing  for  him 
they  have  done;  they  have  thoroughly  tamed  his 
spirit.  There  are  no  adventurous  quests  in  him. 
There  is  never  an  evening  when  his  spirit  will  an- 
noy him  by  yearning  to  do  impossible  things.  Bet- 
ter than  an  animal  cage  of  thick  iron  bars,  or  a 
prison  cell  where  the  pads  are  fat  and  impenetra- 
ble, is  the  modern  office  for  taming  the  roving 
blood  and  reducing  to  orderliness  the  leaping  joy 
of  hfe." 

Quite  another  type  than  this  subdued  man,  to 
whose  credit  it  may  at  least  be  said  that  he  earns 
his  daily  bread,  is  that  smart  fellow,  the  "four- 
flusher."    He  fares  much  better  than  the  tamed  of- 


WHAT  IS  IT  TO  LIVE?  27 

fice  man,  in  fact,  waxes  fat — until  he  oversteps  the 
line  between  unconscionable  and  unlawful  and  gets 
into  the  hands  of  the  federal  authorities.  He 
flourished  in  increasing  numbers  from  the  time  of 
his  advent  some  twenty  years  ago  down  to  a  recent 
time,  since  which  period  the  aforesaid  federal  au- 
thorities have  thinned  his  ranks  somewhat.  He  is, 
generally  speaking,  a  well-dressed,  round,  smooth- 
faced chap  with  fishy,  impersonal  eyes,  and  a  turn- 
down mouth,  expressive  of  cynicism.  He  is  by  na- 
ture an  Ishmaelite  and  a  freebooter,  and  is  quite 
impartial  with  respect  to  his  victims;  all  is  fish  that 
comes  to  his  net.  He  is  not  a  human  being  in  the 
sense  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  human  being, 
for  he  has  no  heart.  His  whole  stock  in  trade  is 
bluff,  on  which,  as  Eva  Tanguay  sings,  "half  the 
world  is  run." 

Of  course,  bluff  or  "front,"  is  not  limited  to 
practitioners  such  as  the  one  just  described;  nor  is 
it  confined  entirely  to  the  city,  but  is  to  be  found 
wherever  men  are  sailing  under  false  colors.  Its 
most  common  employment,  however,  in  this  com- 
mercial age,  is  in  reference  to  one's  wealth.  "If 
you  have  not  a  virtue,  assume  it,"  has  many  fol- 
lowers along  this  line,  these  days.  If  there  were 
as  many  millionaires  as  men  who  contrive  to  be  so 
considered,  they  would  be  as  numerous  as  spar- 
rows. If  I  were  to  frame  a  new  definition  of  mil- 
lionaire it  would  be:  A  person  worth  $30,000  and 
who  runs  a  bluff  at  a  million.  A  few  more  years 
of   bluff    and   this   term   millionaire   will   become 


2  8     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

cheap  and  lose  its  meaning,  as  many  another  brave 
word  which  started  out  well  has  lost  its  meaning. 

If  we  take  the  newspapers  for  it,  about  the  only 
people  of  the  city  who  possess  an  individuality  are 
multi-millionaires,  star  ball-players  and  champion 
pugilists,  together  (in  a  minor  degree)  with  the 
higher  city  officials.  All  other  citizens  are  on  a 
dead  level,  with  respect  to  the  figure  they  cut;  you 
rarely  hear  of  them  unless  as  victims  of  a  holo- 
caust, as  persons  charged  with  crime,  or  as  parties 
to  a  salacious  scandal. 

Yet  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  make  individuality 
depend  upon  either  fame  or  fortune.  If  it  did  so 
depend,  most  of  us  would  be  doomed  to  remain 
nonentities,  no  matter  where  we  pass  our  days.  It 
is  not  because  people  are  poor  that  they  lack  indi- 
viduality. Many  a  man  in  the  country  or  village 
that  possesses  no  more  property  than  does  the  av- 
erage city  man  has  a  pronounced,  even  picturesque, 
personality.  He  is  known  and  duly  appreciated 
in  a  wide  circle  for  his  integrity,  his  sound  judg- 
ment, his  wit,  or  for  his  eccentricities,  and  his  fund 
of  good  stories.  And  the  local  weekly  paper  takes 
note  of  his  comings  and  goings.  No,  neither  fame 
nor  fortune  should  be  considered  essential  to  in- 
dividuality. But  individuality  and  real  living  do 
imply  being  counted,  being  taken  note  of — being 
somebody,  in  short — by  reason  of  distinct  traits  of 
character.  It  is  through  the  exercise  and  influence 
of  his  traits  of  character  that  a  man  should  im- 
press himself  upon   the   community  in   which   he 


WHAT  IS  IT  TO  LIVE?  29 

lives.     Without  these  qualities,  or  if  they  be  in  an 
atrophied  condition,  he  is  nothing. 

If  you  would  make  a  man  a  dog,  treat  him  like 
a  dog.  We  do  not  like  to  take  note  of  blanks, 
either  in  lotteries  or  in  lives,  but  if  we  will  be  at 
the  pains  of  looking  into  lives  that  are  but  types 
of  thousands  of  other  lives,  we  will  understand 
why  there  are  so  many  human  dogs  in  a  big  city — 
and  stray  dogs  at  that.  Do  they  not  receive  much 
the  same  consideration,  or,  rather,  lack  of  consider- 
ation, accorded  to  stray  dogs?  Who  knows  your 
citizen,  the  vaunted  product  of  civilization?  Who 
cares  for  him?  What  does  he  amount  to?  And 
what  does  he  get  out  of  life?  When  a  man  re- 
ceives no  attention,  and  is  of  no  interest  to  his  fel- 
low men,  his  personal  relations  of  necessity  cease, 
or  are  greatly  curtailed.  He  feels  his  loneliness; 
he  realizes  his  insignificance;  all  individuality  is 
starved  out  of  him,  and  he  drops  out  of  sight.  He 
virtually  becomes  an  outcast.  With  him  it  is  sheer 
neglect  that  represses  "noble  rage"  and  freezes 
"the  genial  current  of  the  soul."  So  far  as  the 
sentiment  of  commiseration  is  concerned  the  poet 
of  today  could  find  far  greater  inspiration  for  an 
elegy  in  a  city  cemetery  than  in  a  country  church- 
yard. Says  Luther  Burbank,  the  plant-wizard: 
"When  the  cactus  had  to  contend  with  hungry 
beasts  and  the  heat  of  the  desert,  it  developed 
spines  and  a  thick  hide.  Underfed,  underpaid,  ig- 
norant and  helpless  folk,  peopling  the  deserts  of 
our  cities,  go  through  identically  the  same  read- 


30     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

justment.  They  develop  barbed,  suspicious,  embit- 
tered natures."  Your  citizen  has  a  right  to  vote, 
and  is  flattered,  near  election  time,  by  smiling  of- 
fice-seekers. Newspapers  sometimes  tickle  his  vani- 
ty by  referring  to  him  (in  the  abstract,  however), 
as  the  "sovereign  voter."  But  all  this  is  cold  com- 
fort; he  feels  himself  a  cipher  notwithstanding. 
Like  the  despairing  cry. 


"Water,    water    everywhere, 
Nor  any   drop   to   drink," 


could  well  be  the  city  man's  wail,  "People,  people, 
everywhere,  nor  any  one  I  know."  For  it  is  scarce- 
ly an  exaggeration  to  say  that  outside  his  family 
(if  he  has  a  family)  he  really  knows  no  one,  and 
if  a  business  man,  he  only  half  knows  his  family, 
because  of  blunted  sensibilities  or  diverted 
thoughts.  Someone  has  well  said  that  no  man  can 
be  a  good  husband  or  father  who  is  absorbed  in 
money-making.  His  business  associates  he  knows 
in  a  merely  diplomatic  way.  The  ordinary  citizen 
is  almost  a  stranger  among  the  half  million  or 
more  of  his  fellow  beings.  He  has,  sometimes,  a 
nominal  acquaintance  with  a  small  circle,  but  even 
such  an  acquaintance  is  more  circumscribed  than 
that  of  the  average  village  resident  in  his  native 
town. 

With  only  such  a  shallow  acquaintance  with 
one's  fellow  man,  is  it  any  wonder  that  no  distin- 
guishing traits  of  character  are  to  be  discovered, 


WHAT  IS  IT  TO  LIVE?  31 

or  even  expected  in  city  men;  that  all  are, like  the 
derby  hats  they  wear,  very  much  the  same?  When 
an  individual,  the  man  from  the  country  or  small 
town,  appears  on  the  scene,  he  is  apt  to  be  consid- 
ered a  "character;"  and  when  contrasted  with  the 
standardized  beings  about  him,  he  is  a  character. 
Spend  an  hour  at  an  Inter-urban  station  observing 
the  people  who  get  off  the  cars,  and  you  will  under- 
stand. Note  the  smack  of  individuality  about 
them.  Their  clothes  may  be  of  the  style  of  the 
early  seventies,  but  you  do  not  doubt  the  import- 
ance of  these  people  "back  home."  They  may  be 
"Rubes,"  but  they  get  more  of  real  life  out  of  one 
month  than  the  city  man  gets  out  of  a  year.  And 
they  differ  one  from  another,  too;  you  can  com- 
pare them.  But  suppose  the  city  man  should  un- 
dertake to  compare  the  characters  of  his  neigh- 
bors, if  he  be  so  fortunate  as  to  know  the  name 
of  those  who  live  three  doors  from  him.  What  a 
farce  the  whole  proceeding!  It  would  be  like  com- 
paring one  blank  piece  of  paper  with  another. 

The  fact  is,  the  city  man  does  not  know  his 
neighbors  in  any  real  sense.  There  is  an  indescrib- 
able something,  perhaps  it  is  the  vastness  and  the 
vagueness  of  a  big  city,  that  not  only  minimizes 
the  individual,  but  shrouds  him  a  veil  of  incompre- 
hensibility. There  is  a  bewilderment  in  numbers. 
As,  while  watching  the  simultaneous  perform- 
ances taking  place  in  a  three-ringed  circus,  we  get 
but  a  confused  impression  of  what  each  performer 
is  doing,  so,  in  looking  at  the  kaleidoscopic  move- 


3  2     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

ments  of  the  men  and  women  who  make  up  a 
big  city,  we  focus  little  attention  on  individuals. 
Or,  again,  in  the  sense  of  mass,  the  city  is  the  or- 
ganism of  which  the  citizen  is  but  a  cell.  In  this 
sense  also,  a  forest  may  well  illustrate  the  city,  and 
the  tree  the  individual.  As  the  forest  robs  the 
tree  of  attention,  so  the  city  takes  the  attention 
from  the  citizen,  the  man. 

Hence  it  is  that  in  a  city  one  does  not  know  his 
neighbor,  and,  if  an  old  resident,  the  chances  are 
he  does  not  care  to  know  him;  if  he  did,  he  could 
not.  Any  attempt  in  a  city  to  become  acquainted 
with  one's  neighbor  seems  to  be  in  bad  taste.  City 
people,  even  professing  Christians,  seldom  speak 
without  the  formality  of  an  introduction.  To  do 
so,  unless  at  a  Rescue  Mission,  would  be  a  breach 
of  etiquette;  yet  in  a  nearby  church  the  clergyman 
stands  Sunday  after  Sunday,  conventionally  preach- 
ing the  brotherhood  of  man.  Occasionally  a  young 
clergyman — generally  one  recently  from  a  small 
town — inwardly  astonished  at  the  coldness  and  in- 
difference of  city  people  and  at  their  lack  of  fellow- 
ship, will  hire  a  large  tent,  and,  pitching  it  on  a 
vacant  lot,  seek  by  sheer  novelty  to  enthuse  his  au- 
dience. Vain  effort,  and  one  speedily  abandoned. 
The  exhorter  soon  finds  that  he  is  dealing  with  a 
class  of  people  very  different  from  those  he  swayed 
in  the  little  town  he  came  from. 

Deprived  of  that  influence  which  in  a  smaller 
community  he  could  exert,  and  of  the  importance 
resulting  therefrom,  the  cit}'^  man  loses  not  only 


WHAT  IS  IT  TO  LIVE?  33 

the  picturesqueness  of  individuality,  but  all  charm 
of  personality.  He  becomes  a  mere  shuttle-mov- 
ing, by  the  force  of  necessity,  to  and  fro  between 
home  and  worshop,  store  or  office.  And  it  mat- 
ters little  whether  it  be  one  or  the  other.  Except 
for  his  better  clothes,  his  more  prosperous  appear- 
ance, and  a  little  more  elbow-room,  the  office  man 
who  takes  a  late  car  down  town  differs  but  little 
from  the  sad-eyed,  sullen  factory  hand,  who,  hav- 
ing to  take  an  earlier  car,  is  packed  against  his 
fellow  toilers  like  a  sardine  in  a  box.  In  either 
case  there  is  the  same  dumb  nobody. 

Do  not  try  to  start  a  conversation  with  one  of 
these  better  dressed  men.  You  will  be  considered 
"fresh"  if  you  do.  Should  you  so  far  forget  your- 
self and  the  eternal  proprieties  as  to  try  to  con- 
verse with  one  of  these  conventional  human  atoms, 
you  will  receive  no  notice.  You  might  as  well 
have  addressed  a  post.  Should  you  persist  in  your 
effort  to  be  sociable  and  make  a  second  remark, 
look  out!  for  the  probabilities  are  you  will  get  a 
reply  so  gruff  and  short  as  to  make  you  feel  that 
you  have  committed  an  unpardonable  offense.  No 
Reuben,  come  to  town,  ever  evinced  greater  out- 
ward signs  of  distrust  toward  a  would-be  conge- 
nial stranger  than  do  these  presumably  sophisti- 
cated denizens  of  the  city. 

It  is  only  just  to  the  manual  toiler — a  term  that 
has  come,  though  improperly,  to  be  synonymous 
with  working  man  — to  say  that  the  foregoing 
strictures  do  not  apply  so  fully  to  him.    The  labor- 


34     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION. 

Ing  classes,  so-called,  are  the  only  city  beings  who 
approach  the  country  and  small-town  people  in  re- 
spect to  sociability  and  sincerity.  The  factory 
worker  (unless  he  be  one  of  those  chaps  who  is  ob- 
sessed with  "class  consciousness,"  in  which  case  he 
Is  apt  to  be  rather  grouchy,  for  he  hates  the  world 
and  himself  thrown  in)  will  very  frequently  re- 
spond to  a  stranger's  adv^ances,  and  be  friendly, 
and  that  without  reserve.  Not  so  with  the  soft- 
handed  business  man,  bank,  store,  or  office  clerk. 
He  stands  on  what  he  mistakes  for  dignity,  and  be- 
fore a  stranger  can  get  his  attention,  he  must  show 
his  credentials, — good  clothes,  and  at  least  an  as- 
sumption of  equality  in  the  business  world.  If  the 
reader  is  here  prompted  to  excuse  the  business  man 
on  the  ground  of  his  "busy-ness,"  I  reply  that  while 
this  may  partially  account  for  his  lack  of  sociabil- 
ity and  politeness,  it  does  not  deny  it.  The  fact 
remains  just  the  same;  this  is  all  that  I  contend, 
which  is  enough. 

The  naturalist  tells  us  of  fish  that  lose  their  eyes 
because  they  live  in  the  waters  of  caverns  where  all 
is  dark;  the  physiologist  affirms  that  all  one  need 
do  to  lose  the  use  of  an  arm  Is  to  carry  it  in  a  sling 
for  a  long  time;  and  the  evolutionist  emphasizes 
the  part  played  by  environment  In  the  development 
of  all  life.  It  Is  the  violation  of  this  law  of  exer- 
cise, this  law  which  says  to  us:  "Use  or  lose,"  that 
accounts  for  the  loss  to  the  city  man  of  very  much 
that  history  and  biography,  as  well  as  the  noblest 
ideals  of  our  common  humanity,  teach  us  should 


WHAT  IS  IT  TO  LIVE?  35 

characterize  the  real  man.  Indeed,  if  one  were  to 
accept  the  unique  theory  of  the  late  Henry  Drum- 
inond  concerning  the  nature  of  the  human  soul,  as 
propounded  in  his  "Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual 
World,"  he  would  find  much  to  convince  him  that 
the  seasoned  city  man  has  no  soul;  that  his  soul 
died  of  starvation. 


"Then  hit  the  trail  and  follow  it  adown  the  western  slope ; 
This  city  life  may  be  all  right  for  those  whose  eyes  are  blind, 
Or  those  who  never  see  beyond  the  daily,  dulling  grind. 
But  herding  round  a  snubbing  post  from  eight  till  half  past 

five. 
Has  never  kept  the  outdoor  heart  of  vagabonds  alive. 
Here  every  man  is  for  himself,  the  devil  for  them  all; 
And  few  have  pity  for  the  weak  who  by  the  wayside  fall, 
They're  branded  with  the  city's  iron,  in  body,  heart  and  soul ; 
On  every  hand  I  see  them  strive,  with  money  for  their  goal 
But  outward  where  the  sun  goes  down  is  room  for  you  and 

me. 
And  there  the  men  are  what  their  God  intended  they  should 

be. 
This  old  corral  is  far  too  small  for  my  six  feet  of  brawn, 
So  I  shall  take  the  Western  trail  before  another  dawn. 
And  all  I  ask  of  future  years  is  that  my  feet  may  stray 
Along  some  sun-kissed  range  until  the  final  round-up  day." 

— Helen  Washer. 


CHAPTER  III 

Superficiality  and  Frivolity 

IN  an  address  delivered  a  year  or  two  ago  be- 
fore a  graduating  class  a  distinguished  states- 
man deplored  the  superficiality  of  the  times. 
It  was  a  seasonable  theme.  For  there  has 
never  been  a  time  in  our  history  when  serious  study 
and  sober  thought  were  so  demanded  of  all  our 
people  as  they  are  today.  Insidious  evils  are  prey- 
ing upon  the  moral  body  of  society — grievous  ills, 
relating,  for  example,  to  "the  lowering  of  the 
ideals  of  marriage  and  the  substitution  of  a  tem- 
porary contract  for  that  permanent  union  which  is 
necessary,  to  take  no  higher  ground  for  the  nurture 
and  education  of  the  next  generation;  the  commer- 
cial employment  of  married  women,  resulting  to  a 
serious  extent,  in  the  neglect  and  disruption  of 
family  life  and  the  displacement  and  unemploy- 
ment of  men;  the  uncontrolled  multiplication  of 
the  degenerate,  who  threaten  to  swamp  in  a  few 
generations,  the  purer  elements  of  our  race  .  .  . 
the  prevalence  of  vice,  the  increase  of  insanity  and 
feeble-mindedness,  and  their  exhaustless  drain  up- 
on free-flowing  charity  and  the  national  purse;  the 
wide  circulation  of  debasing  books  and  papers 
which  imply  the  existence,  to  a  deplorable  extent, 

36 


SUPERFICIALITY  AND  FRIVOLITY  37 

of  low  ideals  amongst  a  multitude  of  readers;  and 
some  of  the  manifold  evils  of  our  industrial  sys- 
tem which  cause  the  hideous  congestion  of  slum- 
dom  with  its  irreparable  loss  of  the  finer  sensibili- 
ties, of  beauty,  sweetness  and  light." 

Nor  is  careful  thought  less  called  for  in  the  con- 
sideration of  remedies.  Political  innovators,  sen- 
sible of  the  wrongs  in  "present  conditions,"  to 
use  a  current  platitude,  and  aware  that  the  people 
do  not  get  a  "square  deal,"  but  unmindful  of  the 
fact  that  under  our  form  of  go\'ernmcnt  it  is  their 
own  fault,  in  the  long  run,  if  they  do  not,  are  pro- 
posing to  make  the  horse  drink  by  means  of  the 
Initiative,  Referendum  and  Recall.  A  New  Na- 
tionalism and  a  New  Democracy  also  are  being 
preached.  And  now,  more  portentous  than  all 
else,  the  spectre  of  a  capital-labor  war,  which  for 
forty  years  has  occasionally  appeared  to  disturb 
our  complacency,  is  assuming  the  flesh  and  blood 
aspect  of  reality,  and  is  standing  over  us  with 
threatening  mien,  an  apparition  that  seems  half 
anarchistic,  half  socialistic. 

But  is  not  our  Nero  strumming  the  lyre  while 
Rome  is  burning?  Wliat  indication  is  there  in  the 
absorption  of  men  and  women  in  chewing  gum,  ex- 
changing comic  picture-cards,  crowding  moving 
picture  shows,  attending  card  clubs  and  reading 
inane  novels  whose  sole  reason  for  existence  is  the 
author's  need  of  money — just  as  a  shoddy  suit  of 
clothes  is  made  to  sell — what  indication  is  there 
that  we  have  any  problems  to  solve?     Yet  are  not 


38     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

these  and  similar  avocations,  the  rule  rather  than 
the  exception  in  our  great  cities  today?  While 
it  is  true  that  many  books  on  reform  are  published 
now-a-days,  besides  magazines  that  are  full  of  the 
"literature  of  exposure,"  yet  for  every  one  such 
publication  read  there  are  scores  of  the  other  kind, 
as  inquiry  at  the  bookstore  and  the  library  will  dis- 
close. If  it  be  thought  that  a  civilization  in  which 
flourished  a  James  Whitcomb  Riley,  a  William  D. 
Howells,  a  Thomas  Edison,  and  many  men  of 
like  eminence,  can  not  be  in  a  very  bad  way,  it 
should  be  remembered  that  it  was  in  the  decadent 
days  of  old  Greece  and  Rome  that  some  of  the 
best  examples  of  literature,  philosophy  and  art 
were  given  to  the  world.  But  we  need  not  go  back 
to  ancient  times  nor  to  foreign  lands  for  illustra- 
tion of  this  truth.  Right  here  in  Boston  today  one 
side  of  the  city  is  writing  and  painting,  while  the 
other  side  is  writhing  and  panting.  Indeed,  Bos- 
ton, in  her  history,  is  a  composite  Athens  and 
Rome  in  all  their  glory  and  in  much  of  their  de- 
generacy. 

The  superficiality  of  the  city  is  owing,  primarily, 
to  the  lack  of  real  life  there.  The  man  who  really 
lives,  is,  in  the  main,  a  serious  man;  his  thoughts 
and  his  conversation  are  worth  while.  Not  so 
with  automatons;  not  so  with  butterflies.  Shut  out 
from  responsibilities  in  large  affairs,  realizing  his 
impotence,  conscious  of  the  lack  of  weight  of  his 
opinions  on  matters  of  moment,  the  city  dweller 
descends  to  trivial  things.     His  consciousness  of 


SUPERFICIALITY  AND  FRIVOLITY  39 

his  own  littleness  finds  expression  in  his  conversa- 
tion, however  much  he  may  stri\c,  by  mock  digni- 
ty and  austerity,  to  "run  a  bluti"  at  importance. 
And  what  are  tl;e  topics  of  his  conversation?  Lit- 
tle things.  For  instance,  where  you  hear  one  citi- 
zen talking  intelligently,  and  as  one  Iiaving 
thouglitful  views,  on  the  fundamental  (|uestions  of 
human  welfare,  you  will  hear  twenty  indulging  in 
frivolous  talk,  and  this  whether  it  he  on  the  street 
or  in  the  home,  th.e  latest  peril  of  Pauline  being  a 
favorite  topic  in  the  latter  place.  As  for  wit,  we 
had  a  current  specimen  of  it  a  year  or  two  ago  in 
the  brilliant  changes  that  were  run  on  "skiddoo," 
"twenty-three,"  and  "stung." 

Of  the  topics  of  conversation  in  society,  when  on 
parade,  Mr.  Ralph  Pulitzer  has  this  to  say:  "Plays 
are  touched  on,  but  acting  is  ignored;  operas  are 
discussed,  but  only  for  the  personal  performances 
of  celebrated  singers,  not  for  the  music  of  the 
operas  themselves.  Politics  are  discussed  only  so 
far  as  they  aliect  the  Stock  Exchange  or  the  race- 
track. Politicians  are,  of  course,  beneath  discus- 
sion, save  in  the  rare  cases  of  male  members  of  so- 
ciety who  have  answered  the  call  for  gentlemen  to 
enter  politics  for  their  purification,  and  who  have 
invariably  turned  out  the  most  pointedly  practical 
politicians  of  the  lot.  Painting  is  discussed  only  to 
the  extent  of  the  latest  fashionable  foreign  artist's 
portrait  of  the  latest  fashionable  native  society 
woman.  Literature  is  less  fortunate,  being  con- 
siderably talked  about  in  the  shape  ol  the  latest  fie- 


40     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

tion;  but  all  the  talk  confines  itself  to  the  plot  and 
the  character;  the  style  is  left  severely  to  itself. 
Science  is  discussed  only  as  represented  by  the  mer- 
its of  competing  types  of  automobiles.  States- 
manship figures  in  the  conversation  only  as  mani- 
fested in  the  iniquities  of  a  tariff  system  which 
makes  possible  the  New  York  Customs  inspection; 
and  the  most  effective  methods  of  nullifying  this 
system  (being  also  touched  on)  .  .  .  The 
market  is  the  one  inspiration  that  can  transmute 
general  loquacity  into  general  eloquence.  It  is  not 
merely  that  the  future  of  a  stock  is  like  the  future 
of  the  soul,  a  subject  on  which  any  one  man's  guess 
is  as  tenable  as  any  other  man's  theory.  But  prac- 
tically every  man  present  has  learned  his  stock  quo- 
tations at  his  mother's  knee.  He  knows  'The 
Street,'  its  traditions,  its  whole  history,  a  great 
deal  better  than  he  knows  the  history  of  his  coun- 
try." 

Your  citizen  seems  to  be  characterized  by  petty 
curiosity  as  well  as  by  petty  conversation.  He  is 
curious  over  the  manner  of  applying  pitch  to  the 
pavement;  the  size  of  the  new  numbers  being 
placed  on  houses;  the  newest  kind  of  lamps  on  au- 
tomobiles; and  it  is  not  an  uncommon  sight  to  see 
a  dozen  citizens  critically  inspecting  some  new-fan- 
gled contrivance  on  one  of  these  machines,  making 
momentous  observations  the  while.  Who  has  not 
had  to  take  to  the  curb  to  get  by  a  crowd  of  men 
monopolizing  the  sidewalk  just  to  see  some  adver- 
tising youth  inside  a  store  window  seesaw  a  neck- 


SUPERFICIALITY  AND  FRIVOLITY  41 

tie  around  his  collar?  llie  fellow  who  designed 
that  diagram  on  the  package  of  the  Inner  Seal 
food  preparations  must  have  had  in  mind  this 
mouse-like  curiosity  of  the  city  people. 

Enduring  a  hopeless  from-hand-to-mouth  ex- 
istence, calloused  by  the  stereotyped  scenes  of  ar- 
tificial creation,  and  shut  out  from  the  inspiration 
of  nature's  works,  cynicism  comes  all  too  often,  to 
take  the  place  of  idealism  in  the  city  man's  mind. 
Who  can  fail  to  understand  Hepworth  when,  in 
his  "Brown  Studies,"  he  says:  "I  am  not  the  same 
man  that  I  was  in  New  York.  I  lived  so  long 
among  all  sorts  of  creatures  there  that  I  found  my- 
self growing  cynical;  but  since  I  have  slept  in  the 
woods,  where  everything  is  honest,  loyal  to  its  des- 
tiny, and  true  to  the  high  purpose  for  which  it 
was  created,  I  notice  that  the  simplicity  and  trust- 
fulness and  buoyancv  of  my  boyhood  are  coming 
back." 

Of  course,  "simplicity  and  trustfulness  and 
buoyancy"  will  come  back  when  they  are  given  a 
chance,  since  they  are  our  primal  inheritance.  No- 
tice the  change,  after  a  year  or  two,  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  man  who  retires  from  business,  quits 
the  city,  and  goes  to  his  country  home.  With  the 
city  dweller,  however,  the  case  is  very  different. 
Anything  for  him  but  the  crime  of  appearing 
"green."  What  remnant  of  naturalness  is  still  left 
to  him  out  of  his  inheritance  from  country-born 
ancestors  is  shut  in  by  a  sort  of  storm-door  of  bluff, 
through  which  his  fellow  man  is  rarely  permitted 


42     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

to  enter.  To  betray  emotion  is  to  invite  a  derisive 
smile  from  the  man  at  his  elbow.  For  instance,  to 
show  sympathy  for  the  messenger  boy  who  has 
fallen  from  his  wheel,  and  especially  to  start  to  his 
assistance,  would  be  chicken-hearted.  If  you  are 
a  true  city  man,  you  will  stand  by  and  grin.  It  is 
so  comical,  you  know,  to  see  a  fellow  plunge  over 
his  wheel  on  to  the  stone  pavement.  And  that 
ragged, half-starved, man  sitting  on  the  park  bench 
or  lounging  in  the  shelter-house,  during  the  mo- 
mentary absence  of  the  policeman — who  of  the 
city's  hurrying  throng  ever  stops  to  minister  to 
him?  Were  one  to  do  so,  the  recipient  of  the  at- 
tention would  think  himself  dreaming,  so  amazing 
would  be  such  an  instance  of  Christian  concern. 
Yet  a  goodly  per  cent,  of  the  passers-by  are 
"Christians."  Even  the  Salvation  Army,  that 
unique  organization  at  first  looked  at  askance  by 
dignified  clergymen,  and  then  welcomed  by  them 
as  just  the  thing  to  look  after  the  offal  of  human- 
ity, while  they  themselves  courted  the  well-to-do, 
— even  the  Salvation  Army  has  now  too  much  red 
tape  about  it  to  bother  very  much  with  such  un- 
fortunates. 

There  are  more  love  songs  sung,  more  love  ser- 
mons preached  and  less  true  love  in  the  world  to- 
day than  there  has  been  in  a  hundred  years  before. 
And  all  because  men  and  women  have  been  flocking 
more  and  more  to  the  city,  where  there  is  no  time 
for  love,  where  there  are  too  many  distractions, 
and  where  simulation  and  synicism  take  its  place. 


SUPERFICIALITY  AND  FRIVOLITY  43 

No  sooner  is  a  new  sentimental  song  sung  than  its 
parody  chases  it  across  the  continent.  It  was  cer- 
tainly a  city  chap  who  changed  "All  the  world 
loves  a  lover"  into  "All  the  world  laughs  at  a 
lover." 

There  is,  to  be  sure,  a  sort  of  charity  for  Jesus' 
sake,  a  calculating,  or  at  best,  sense-of-duty  kind; 
but  little  enough  of  innate,  spontaneous,  no-re- 
ward-expected, kindliness.  Even  among  women, 
especially  educated  women,  of  the  rising  genera- 
tion, this  absence  of  heart  is  noticeable.  A  ladies' 
magazine  recently  deplored,  with  much  evidence 
adduced,  the  cold,  artificial,  and  unsympathetic 
natures  of  the  young  women  who  come  home  from 
college. 

The  increasing  attention  giv'en  to  dress  and  es- 
pecially to  amusements — the  fondness  for  the  lat- 
ter fast  becoming  a  craze — also  emphasizes  the 
city's  renunciation  of  serious  purposes,  that  is,  in 
the  making  of  men  and  women,  and  its  abandon- 
ment to  the  superficial  and  the  ephemeral.  While 
we  are  fond  of  saying  that  money  does  not  make 
the  man,  we  must  all  admit  that  in  our  land  today 
it  is  the  one  thing  that  differentiates  man  from 
man,  the  possession  most  prized,  even  if  not  most 
praised;  and  when,  though  thus  esteemed,  its  ac- 
cumulation is  abandoned  as  hopeless,  recklessness 
is  apt  to  follow.  "What  is  the  use  of  trying  to 
save  money?"  reasons  the  citizen  in  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances. "No  investment  can  be  made  with 
what  little  I  may,  by  rigid  self-denial,  accumulate." 


44     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

Where  a  front  foot  of  residence  property  costs 
more  than  a  whole  acre  of  farm  land  in  the  coun- 
try, and  where  the  ownership  of  a  business  calls 
for  the  investment  of  a  fortune,  the  method  em- 
ployed in  bygone  days  of  getting  rich  by  saving  is 
impossible.  The  most  the  average  city  man  may 
hope  to  do  is  to  provide  for  a  "rainy  day,"  which 
has  come  to  mean  a  short  period  of  idleness  or 
sickness.  But  few  of  us  like  to  think  of  "rainy 
days."  So  the  money  goes:  for  necessary  house- 
hold expenses  first,  and  then,  more  and  more  for 
fine  clothes  and  amusements.  The  foregoing  re- 
marks apply  almost  wholly  to  the  so-called  pros- 
perous classes,  that  is,  to  those  who  are  making  a 
comfortable  hving.  In  the  case  of  the  very  poor, 
the  order  of  expenses  is  likely  to  be  rev^ersed — 
amusements  and  pie  and  cake  coming  first,  and 
flour  and  meat  second. 

In  the  matter  of  dress,  as  in  everything  else,  the 
conventional  attitude  is  taken.  Little  or  no  thought 
is  given  to  what  cut  or  color  of  raiment  best  be- 
comes the  wearer.  To  insist  on  wearing  what  real- 
ly becomes  one,  regardless  of  the  prevailing  style, 
would  smack  of  an  individuality,  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  city  resident  does  not,  as  a  rule,  possess. 
Men  and  women  are  governed  by  one  iron  rule, 
namely,  the  rule  imposed  by  a  clique  of  fashion- 
makers  in  New  York  and  Paris,  for  whose  finan- 
cial interest  it  is,  of  course,  to  make  radical  changes, 
at  least  in  the  ear-marks  of  clothing,  from  year  to 
year.    And  how  these  dictators  of  style  must  laugh 


SUPERFICIALITY  AND  FRIVOLITY  45 

at  some  of  the  effects  they  produce!  For  the  young 
man  who  prides  himself  on  being  in  "the  swim"  to 
he  seen  wearing  a  sack  coat,  though  it  be  in  good 
condition,  that  is  an  inch  or  two  shorter  than  the 
New  York  fashion  maker  has  decreed  he  should 
wear,  or  for  the  young  (or  middle-aged?)  woman 
to  go  out  with  a  hat,  that,  however  becoming,  is 
of  last  year's  style,  would  almost  amount  to  a  dis- 
grace. It  would  be  a  source  of  humiliation,  at  all 
events.  The  impression  is  not  here  intended  to  be 
given  that  all  city  people  are  thus  weak  votaries  of 
the  fashion  plate;  but  it  is  undeniably  true  that 
nearly  all  who  have  the  money  to  follow  the  er- 
ratic decrees  of  fashion  do  so. 

Occasionally  society  people  will  assert  a  purpose 
to  throw  off  the  yoke  and  dress  as  becomes  them. 
My  paper  publishes  an  account  of  a  movement  by 
Chicago  society  women  against  a  uniform  style  of 
dress,  sought  to  be  imposed  on  them  by  the  Chica- 
go Dressmakers'  Club.  They  say  that  "women  arc 
meant  to  be  pretty  and  are  going  to  be."  Much 
power  to  them !  But  I  am  afraid  the  dressmakers 
will  win  the  battle. 

In  the  line  of  literature  and  of  amusements, 
plays,  shows,  and  the  like, we  find  the  parodox  of  a 
craving  for  the  exciting,  sensational,  and  fantastic, 
along  with  a  state  of  mind  that  takes  the  most  as- 
tonishing things  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  is  not 
surprised  into  admiring  anything.  The  portrayal 
of  human  nature,  that  feature  which  makes  the 
classics,  whether  plays  or  books,  so  valued,  finds 


46     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

little  expression  in  the  stuff  that  sells  in  the  city 
today,  notwithstanding  that  many  of  these  produc- 
tions are  advertised  to  possess  "human  interest," 
as  the  catchy  phrase  puts  it.  The  sensational  and 
the  dramatic — how  the  papers  glare  with  the 
words ! — the  improbable  and  the  impossible,  is  the 
style  of  presentation  that  pleases.  It  is  by  these 
traits  that  the  novels  of  the  day  win  popularity. 
The  mix-up  (one  can  hardly  call  it  plot)  of  the 
story  abounds  in  the  improbable  and  sensational — 
a  guess  and  a  thrill  on  every  page.  Still,  it  will 
probably  be  a  relief  to  the  reading  public  when  the 
last  precious  stone  stolen  from  a  Hindu  Raja  has 
been  restored,  and  when  the  last  instance  of  love- 
making  and  marriage  of  first  cousins  shall  have 
been  recorded.  Let  us  hope,  too,  that  melodra- 
matic players  will  soon  understand  that  profanity 
on  the  stage  is  not  wit,  but  only  a  lumber-Jack's 
substitute  for  It.  All  honor  to  the  memory  of  the 
late  Ezra  Kendall  whose  boast  it  was  that  he  never 
resorted  to  profanity  to  win  a  laugh. 

This  craze  for  the  unreal,  the  fantastic,  may  be 
attributed,  in  the  main,  to  two  causes,  one  local, 
the  other  general;  one  incident  to  the  city,  the  oth- 
er to  the  century.  First,  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that 
the  stern  realities  of  existence  in  a  city  where,  as 
a  rule,  all  must  work  or  starve,  together  with  the 
hopeless,  tread-mill,  grind  which  the  vast  majority 
of  toilers  are  forced  through,  year  in  and  year  out, 
seem  to  call  for  a  relaxation  just  as  opposite  to 
their  experience  as  their  imagination  can  conceive. 


SUPERFICIALITY  AND  FRIVOLITY  47 

These  people,  therefore,  crave  the  exhilaration,  the 
ccstacy,  that  comes  of  seeing,  and  of  reading  about, 
the  spectacular  and  unreal.  Secondly,  the  wonder- 
ful inventions  and  discoveries  in  this  generation, 
all  of  which  have  been  stepping-stones  to  others 
quite  as  important,  have  rendered  us  very  credu- 
lous. Nothing  startles  us  now;  on  the  contrary, 
everything  is  accepted  as  a  matter  of  course.  The 
whole  spectacle  of  man's  achievements  tends  to 
convert  our  minds  into  a  sort  of  dreamland  where- 
in everything  becomes  possible.  Nature  sets  no 
limitations,  we  may  do  what  we  please.  Wise-acres 
have  pronounced  the  boat  unsinkable,  so  "on  with 
the  dance." 

It  is  on  a  public  thus  deluded  that  get-rich-quick 
fakirs  fatten;  that  "electric"  and  "magnetic"  heal- 
ers flourish;  and  that  scamps  who  advertise  to 
grow  hair  on  a  bald  head,  or  to  raise  the  dying, 
thrive.  How  many  millions  of  dollars  have  been 
taken  from  the  pockets  of  the  too  credulous  by 
these  rascals  during  the  last  twenty-five  years! 

It  is  with  a  public  thus  deluded,  too,  that  mere 
notoriety  so  frequently  wins  over  solid  worth  in 
politics.  The  masses  today  are  "easy-marks"  for 
the  advertising  politician.  Formerly  an  office- 
seeker  who  bragged  and  blustered  was  not  taken 
seriously;  he  was  regarded  as  a  barking  dog  that 
never  bites.  But  now  the  successful  candidate  is 
almost  as  much  an  advertised  product  as  is  a  break- 
fast food.  And  how  many  voters  are  really  influ- 
enced, though  unconsciously,  by  a  name  that  sounds 


48     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

good  to  them !  Politicians  have  not  yet,  like  many 
stage  people,  adopted  attractive  names,  but  fortu- 
nate is  the  candidate  in  a  big  city  whose  name  is 
Tip  Tyler,  or  Nick  Kik.  He  is  sure  to  win  over 
Henry  Smith  or  George  White.  Better  public  ser- 
vants will  be  chosen  when  the  voters  make  it  their 
business,  through  committees,  or  associations,  to 
know  something  of  the  character  and  qualifications 
of  a  candidate,  and  insist,  where  the  office  is  pecu- 
liarly political,  that  he  tell  in  black  and  white  what 
he  stands  for. 

Finally,  it  is  to  a  public  thus  deluded  that  effec- 
tive appeals  are  made  by  madly  ambitious  men 
who,  like  Cleon  of  old,  go  up  and  down  the  land 
flattering  the  people  and  shouting  their  own  vir- 
tures,  real  or  assumed,  from  the  house-tops,  while 
they  misrepresent  the  records  of  more  worthy  men 
in  office;  who  loudly  demand  that  the  people 
should  rule  when  it  is  the  last  thing  in  the  world 
they  really  want  the  people  to  do ;  who  vehemently 
declare  for  righteousness  in  politics,  but  who,  when 
in  office,  violate  nearly  every  principle  of  honor. 
Of  this  kind  of  cry  that  the  people  should  rule,  an 
independent  paper  sagaciously  remarks  that  it  has 
"fooled  many  nations,  and  it  is  fooling  Americans. 
It  is  the  biggest  tickler  the  world  has  ever  manu- 
factured. It  flatters  everybody,  and  in  the  exulta- 
tion of  that  flattery,  the  many  fall  down  and  wor- 
ship the  howler,  rub  their  foreheads  in  the  dust 
and  sing  the  chorus  into  the  ground,  and  call  them- 
selves blessed  because  of  the  coming  of  so  great  a 


SUPERFICIALITY  AND  FRIVOLITY  49 

prophet,  one  able  and  willing  to  read  their  minds 
and  kind  enough  to  tell  them  that  they  must  rule, 
through  him."  Have  we  not  much  evidence  in 
present  day  politics  of  the  truth  of  Barnum's  say- 
ing that  "the  American  people  love  to  be  hum- 
bugged?" But,  as  for  Lincoln's  dictum  that  "you 
can  fool  part  of  the  people  all  the  time,  and  all  the 
people  part  of  the  time,  but  you  can't  fool  all  the 
people  all  the  time" — it  sounds  fine,  and  is  true; 
but  does  it  amount  to  much  in  practice?  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  the  demagogue  does  not  find  it  at  all 
necessary  to  fool  all  the  people  all  the  time;  a  ma- 
jority will  serve  his  purpose,  and  it  need  not  be 
made  up  of  the  same  people  that  were  fooled  be- 
fore, either. 

I  can  find  no  more  pertinent  thought  in  conclud- 
ing this  chapter  than  that  of  Frederick  Denison 
Maurice  when,  in  comparing  our  own  times  with 
the  degenerate  days  of  Athens,  he  said:  "The  pas- 
sion for  novelty  had  eaten  up  all  other  and  bet- 
ter passionss  in  them  (the  Athenians) — all  rever- 
ence, all  faith,  all  freedom.  It  is  a  very  awful  les- 
son. We  are  not  one-half  as  clever  as  the  Athen- 
ians were.  But  men  have  lived  among  us,  and 
deeds  have  been  done  among  us  as  noble  as  any 
they  could  boast  of.  We  have  been  a  more  practi- 
cal people  than  they  were;  perhaps  less  prone  to 
speculation,  but  more  successful  in  hard,  tough 
business.  Depend  upon  it,  all  qualities  are  in  the 
greatest  danger  of  perishing;  depend  upon  it  we 
shall  become  petty  and  frivolous,  and  stupid  with- 


50     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

al,  as  we  learn  to  spend  our  time  as  the  Athenians 
spent  theirs.  There  are  men  among  us  who  do. 
They  go  about  from  club  to  club,  and  house  to 
house,  and  street  to  street,  saying  'What  now? 
What  is  the  last,  the  very  newest  thing?  Who  can 
tell  us?  That  which  was  heard  two  or  three  days, 
or  two  or  three  hours  ago  is  stale.  We  must  have 
something  fresh.  That  is  what  we  are  hunting 
for."  Such  men  are  the  most  miserable  creatures 
that  this  earth  brings  forth.  The  past  is  nothing 
to  them,  nor  the  future.  They  live  in  the  moment 
that  is  passing.  Their  life  is  absorbed  into  that. 
And  do  not  let  any  of  us  say  that  we  are  not  in  dan- 
ger of  becoming  such  men  as  these.  We  are  all  in 
danger  of  it;  men  of  all  parties  and  professions, 
men  whose  language  sounds  most  serious,  as  well 
as  those  who  never  speak  of  any  world  but  this." 


CHAPTER  IV 

Childhood  in  the  City 

THE  greater  number  of  our  large  cities 
are  so  new,  at  least  in  their  vastness, 
that  comparatively  few  of  the  older  res- 
idents thereof  are  in  all  essentials  com- 
plete products  of  the  city;  and  even  those  who  are 
partially  so  have  been  influenced  in  some  measure 
by  contact  with  the  constant  accretions  from  the 
country. 

But  what  of  the  myriad  of  boys  and  girls  that 
are  today  wholly  a  product  of  the  city,  especially 
of  the  big  city?  Born,  reared  and  cooped  up  within 
the  walls  of  apartment  houses,  or  at  best  in  dwell- 
ings without  yards  in  which  they  can  play  their 
games,  as  is  the  case  with  an  ever-increasing  num- 
ber, their  whole  lives  spent  in  the  city,  what  sort 
of  men  and  women  will  they  become?  This  is  one 
of  the  most  momentous  questions  that  our  civiliza- 
tion must  answer.  That  there  is  a  difference  be- 
tween these  children  and  country  bred  children  ad- 
mits of  no  doubt.  That  the  clothes  of  city  chil- 
dren of  well-to-do  parents  are  of  better  appear- 
ance and  that  their  wits  are  keener  than  were  those 
of  their  grandparents  in  their  youth  is  beyond 
question.     But  is  the  fibre  of  their  character  as 

51 


52     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

strong,  as  reliable?  Will  they  become  as  real 
men  and  women?  It  might  sound  like  a  harsh 
judgment  to  decide  in  the  negative,  for  until  per- 
haps one  or  two  more  generations  of  city  life  have 
given  their  additional  evidence,  judgment  would 
be  premature ;  and  yet  there  is  not  wanting  strong 
evidence  on  the  subject  even  in  our  day. 

In  his  thoughtful  book  "The  Future  Citizen,"  F. 
A.  Myers  quotes  a  London  scientist  as  saying  that 
"life  in  a  big  city  makes  children  quick  but  not 
intelligent,  hastening  the  development  of  the  brain 
unnaturally.  They  become  superficial,  alert,  but 
not  observant,  constructive  and  reasoning;  excita- 
ble but  devoid  of  enthusiasm,  chances  destroyed 
for  being  clever;  blase,  fickle,  discontented,  bird- 
witted,  and,  properly  speaking,  seeing  nothing,  for 
time  is  not  permitted  to  delve,  bewildered  at  the 
multitude  of  things.  In  fact,  life  in  a  city  is  essen- 
tially dangerous  to  the  child-boy — corrupting,  so 
prone  is  a  boy  to  be  led  off.  The  city  attractions 
interfere  with  his  best  intellectual  development  as 
it  does  with  his  physical  progress,  leading  off  his 
attention  from  his  best  efforts.  The  tendency  is 
to  put  temptations  in  his  way  that  lead  him  down 
rather  than  help  him  up." 

The  almost  uniform  testimony  of  parents  whose 
experience  has  been  such  as  to  qualify  them  for  an 
intelligent  opinion  is  that  "the  city  is  a  poor  place 
in  which  to  bring  up  children,"  Unless  we  are 
ready  to  admit  that  the  painting  is  more  real  than 
the  scene  it  represents,  that  the  artificial  is  superior 


CHILDHOOD  IN  THE  CITY         53 

to  the  natural,  we  must  deny  that  children  who  are 
so  much  the  creatures  of  an  artilicial  atmosphere 
as  are  city  children,  can  become  the  real  men  and 
women  that  country  children  can.  It  is  not  im- 
plied here  that  children  should  grow  up  wild,  their 
characters  to  be  left  like  a  neglected  garden  in 
which  weeds  may  choke  out  the  fruits;  but  simply 
that  contact  with  nature  should  be  allowed  in  order 
that,  like  apples  kissed  into  ripened  perfection  by 
the  life-giving  sun,  they  may  develop  into  real  men 
and  women. 

The  truth  is,  we  are  far  more  creatures  of  cir- 
cumstances than  architects  of  our  own  fortunes, 
"inspirational  books,"  however  well  meaning,  to 
the  contrary  notwithstanding.  I  cannot  forbear 
at  this  point,  because  of  its  relevancy  to  my  whole 
theme,  a  somewhat  lengthy  quotation  from  "Force 
and  Matter,"  that  profound  work  of  Ludwig 
Biichner,  a  pioneer,  with  Darwin  and  Wallace,  in 
the  field  of  evolutionary  discoveries.  Biichner 
says: 

"Now  just  as  nations  as  a  whole  are  dependent 
for  their  history  and  characteristics  on  external 
conditions  of  Nature  and  the  internal  ones  of  so- 
ciety under  which  they  have  grown  up,  thus  is  the 
individual  man  no  less  a  product  and  sum  total  of 
external  natural  forces,  not  merely  in  his  entire 
physical  and  moral  being,  but  also  in  each  single 
department  of  his  activity.  This  activity  depends 
first  and  foremost  on  his  whole  mental  individual- 
ity and  special  charactedstics.     I.at:  what  is  this 


54     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

individuality  which  acts  so  decisively  on  man,  and 
in  each  single  instance  quite  apart  from  additional 
external  forces,  fixes  his  line  of  conduct  within  such 
narrow  bounds  as  only  to  leave  an  exceedingly 
small  scope  for  the  exercise  of  his  free  will?  What 
is  this  individuality  but  the  necessary  product  of  in- 
nate physical  and  mental  qualities,  in  connection 
with  training,  teaching,  example,  custom,  rank, 
fortune,  sex,  nationality,  climate,  soil,  conditions  of 
time  and  living,  and  so  on?  Man  is  subject  to  the 
same  law  as  every  plant  and  every  animal — a  law 
with  the  clearly  defined  features  of  which  we  have 
already  met  in  the  primitive  world.  As  the  plant 
depends  for  its  existence,  its  size,  its  form  and 
beauty  upon  the  ground  in  which  it  is  rooted;  as 
the  animal,  great  or  small  or  large,  wild  or  domes- 
ticated, beautiful  or  hideous,  is  the  creature  of  the 
external  conditions  under  which  it  has  grown  up; 
as  an  entozoon  ever  changes  as  it  passes  into  the 
interior  of  another  animal;  thus  each  man  is  no 
less  a  product  of  similar  external  circumstances,  ac- 
cidents, and  arrangements,  and  can  therefore  by 
no  means  be  set  down  as  such  a  mentally  independ- 
ent being  endowed  with  a  free  will,  as  moralists 
and  philosophers  are  in  the  habit  of  presenting 
him.  He  who  brings  with  him  into  the  world  an 
innate  tendency  to  benevolence,  compassion,  con- 
scientiousness, love  of  justice,  and  so  on,  is  in  most 
instances  cut  out  for  a  good  moralist,  supposing 
that  bad  training  or  adverse  conditions  of  life  do 
not  forcibly  subdue  that  tendency;  whilst  on  the 


CHILDHOOD  IN  THE  CITY         55 

other  hand  a  congenital  proclivity  to  melancholy, 
or  indolence,  or  frivolity,  or  vanity,  or  arrogance, 
or  avarice,  or  sensuality,  or  intemperance,  or  gam- 
bling, or  violence,  can,  as  a  rule,  be  neither  con- 
trolled nor  checked  by  any  kind  of  will  or  imagi- 
nation." Perhaps  Biichner  goes  too  far  when  he 
denies  the  power  of  the  will  to  at  least  check  con- 
genital or  inborn  evil  propensities,  but  the  prepon- 
derating influence  of  heredity  and  environment 
over  mere  will  seems  clear. 

So  far  as  parental  influence  goes,  a  child  is,  gen- 
erally speaking,  either  doubly  blessed  or  doubly 
cursed.  If  his  parents  are  honest,  sober,  sensible 
and  thrifty,  they  not  only  endow  him  with  good 
blood,  but  with  a  good  home  as  well,  and  train  him 
in  the  way  he  should  go.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  parents  are  vicious,  ignorant  and  shiftless,  they 
not  only  taint  the  child's  blood  but  neglect  his  wel- 
fare also. 

The  fundamental  evil,  not  of  society,  not  of  the 
state  merely,  but  of  the  human  race  which  builds 
society  and  the  state,  is  "bad  human  protoplasm," 
producing  "scrub-stock."  And  the  great  work  of 
the  race,  if  it  is  to  advance,  is  its  own  regeneration 
through  all  those  means  which  produce  "a  more 
healthy,  more  vigorous,  more  able  humanity."  But 
a  discussion  of  those  means  would  lead  us  into  the 
field  of  what  is  known  to  this  generation  as  Eu- 
genics. 

How  different  must  be  the  human  being  that 
passes  his  life,  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  in  a 


56     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

great  city  from  one  that  thus  lives  in  the  country! 
Marked  as  is  the  countenance  of  the  country  man 
from  that  of  the  city  man,  his  modes  of  thought 
and  traits  of  character  are  scarcely  less  so. 

These  distinguishing  peculiarities  begin  to  mani- 
fest themselves  in  childhood.  That  varieties  exist 
even  among  city  children,  that  they  are  not  all  cast 
in  the  same  mold,  though  more  and  more  they  ap- 
proach a  uniform  type,  is  conceded.  Some  are  the 
children  of  rich  parents,  some  are  the  offspring  of 
moral  and  cultured  parents;  others  are  the  prog- 
eny of  ignorant  and  depraved  parents.  If,  as  Dr. 
Holmes  said,  the  training  of  a  child  should  begin 
with  its  grandparents,  we  need  not  doubt  the  in- 
fluence of  parental  circumstances  on  a  child's  des- 
tiny. Allowing,  therefore,  for  differences  grow- 
ing out  of  the  financial,  intellectual  and  moral  stat- 
us of  his  parents,  we  first  note  the  artificial  cast  of 
the  city  child's  mind,  his  propensity  to  talk  only 
of  the  mechanical  things  about  him.  Nearly  every- 
thing he  sees  or  has  to  do  with  is  man-made.  He 
is  a  stranger  to  the  works  of  nature,  because  he  sees 
little  or  nothing  of  them.  Of  actual  contact  with 
food  plants  and  with  animals  he  has  had  no  ex- 
perience; and  consequently  he  knows  nothing 
of  their  inception,  growth  and  culture.  Not 
having  them  about  him,  the  property  of  his  par- 
ents, he  does  not  have  them  to  look  after,  and  so 
misses  an  early  and  valuable  lesson  in  industry. 
"Books  are  not  the  only  agency  of  intellectual  de- 
velopment; there  is    the    experience    of    industry 


CHILDHOOD  IN  THE  CITY         57 

The  comradeship  of  nature  on  a  farm, 
the  sense  of  strict  faithfulness  and  loyalty,  are 
gained  in  the  country,  and  the  work  there  is  a 
training  of  hands  and  heart  and  brain — to  plan, 
to  will,  to  work,  to  execute." 

Shut  out  from  the  real,  even  though  unconscious 
communion  with  nature  in  her  moods  that  change 
with  the  seasons,  the  city  child  loses  something  that 
no  daily  view  of  tall  buildings,  however  stately 
and  ornate,  can  compensate  for;  and  that  some- 
thing is  a  sense  of  the  sublimity  of  nature,  the  con- 
templation of  which  deepens,  while  it  makes  more 
sincere,  the  characters  of  men.  The  solemn  for- 
est, the  babbling  brook,  the  expanse  of  meadow, 
the  golden  grain,  and  solitude  for  contemplation 
of  them  all,  are  not  of  the  city.  But  in  their  stead 
is  a  desert  of  crowded  houses  and  business  blocks, 
around  which  swirl  the  sickening  smell  of  automo- 
biles and  the  choking  fumes  of  factories.  Even 
the  birds  of  the  city  have  come  to  be  only  those 
dull-colored,  songless,  pugnacious  sparrows  that 
so  typify  all  the  rest  of  what  takes  the  place  of  life 
there. 

The  storm-door  of  bluff  and  bluster,  referred  to 
in  a  former  chapter,  is  early  erected  in  front  of  the 
city  child's  character.  A  manifestation  of  this  is 
to  be  seen,  or  rather  heard,  in  the  tone  of  the  lan- 
guage he  uses.  This  speech,  a  combination  of  Irish 
brogue  with  Bowery  tough,  has  within  recent 
years  become  so  common  as  to  threaten  the  very 
sound  of  our  language.     Formerly  confined  to  the 


58     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

confab  of  street  gamins,  among  whom  it  seemed 
natural  and  was  amusing,  this  tone  has  now  be- 
come so  common  as  to  be  nauseating.  It  habit- 
ually characterizes  the  speech  of  many  of  the 
younger  mechanics,  salesmen  and  even  bank  clerks, 
while  it  is  not  altogether  absent  from  the  voice  of 
young  women.  The  use  of  this  debased  form  of 
speech  seems  to  proceed  partly  from  moral  cow- 
ardice born  of  a  fear  of  being  natural  and  partly 
from  a  silly  belief  that  it  makes  the  user  of  it  ap- 
pear worldly-wise — the  same  feeling  that  swells 
the  chest  of  a  boy  of  fourteen  when  he  is  seen 
(though  not  by  his  father!)  smoking  a  cigar.  To 
be  simple  and  natural  in  speech  is  thought  befit- 
ting only  to  the  clodhopper. 

With  no  playground  near  the  house  on  which 
to  engage  in  sports,  and  with  no  routine  of  chores 
to  do,  the  city  boy,  especially  during  school  vaca- 
tions, is  sorely  tried  for  proper  amusement  or  oc- 
cupation. My  city  reader,  if  you  are  the  parent  of 
a  boy,  how  often  you  have  heard  that  boy  go 
through  the  house  distractedly  wailing,  "What  can 
I  do,  what  can  I  do?"  The  movement  for  public 
playgrounds  in  the  city,  while  very  worthy,  will 
necessarily  fall  short  of  expectations;  for  not  only 
must  the  playgrounds  always  be  pitifully  inade- 
quate in  number  and  size  to  accommodate  the 
thousands  of  city  children,  but  even  where  the  play- 
ground is  nearby,  there  is  that  happy-go-lucky 
trait  in  human  nature  that  prompts  ten  children  to 
play  in  the  dirty  and  noisy  streets  to  one  that  goes 


CHILDHOOD  IN  THE  CITY         59 

to  the  decorous  playground. 

For  lack  of  suitable  pastime  the  boy,  whether 
schoolboy  or  factory  boy,  is  too  frequently  lured 
into  vice,  crime  and  extravagance;  evils  which  in 
after  life  he  must  conquer,  if  he  is  to  amount  to 
anything.  Of  this  want  of  proper  recreation  and 
its  effect  upon  a  certain  class  of  young  factory 
workers  in  Chicago,  Jane  Addams  says:  "This 
inveterate  deniand  of  youth  that  life  shall  afford  a 
large  element  of  excitement  is  in  a  measure  well- 
founded.  We  know  of  course  that  it  is  necessary 
to  accept  excitement  as  an  inevitable  part  of  recrea- 
tion, that  the  first  step  in  recreation  is  'that  excite- 
ment which  stirs  the  worn  or  sleeping  centers  of  a 
man's  body  and  mind.'  It  is  only  when  it  is  fol- 
lowed by  nothing  else  that  it  defeats  its  own  end, 
that  it  uses  up  strength  and  does  not  create  it.  In 
the  actual  experience  of  these  boys  the  excitement 
has  demoralized  them  and  led  them  into  law- 
breaking.  When,  however,  they  seek  legitimate 
pleasure,  and  say  with  great  pride  that  they  are 
'ready  to  pay  for  it,'  what  they  find  is  legal  but 
scarcely  more  wholesome, — it  is  still  merely  ex- 
citement. 'Looping  the  loop'  amid  shrieks  of  sim- 
ulated terror  and  dancing  in  disorderly  saloon 
halls,  are  perhaps  the  natural  reactions  of  a  day 
spent  in  noisy  factories  and  in  trolley  cars  through 
the  distracting  streets,  but  the  city  which  permits 
them  to  become  the  acme  of  pleasure  and  recrea- 
tion to  its  young  people,  commits  a  grievous  mis- 
take. 


6o     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

"May  we  not  assume  that  this  love  of  excite- 
ment, this  desire  for  adventure,  is  basic,  and  will  be 
evinced  by  each  generation  of  city  boys  as  a  chal- 
lenge to  their  elders?  And  yet  those  of  us  who 
live  in  Chicago  are  obliged  to  confess  that  last 
year  there  were  arrested  and  brought  into  court 
fifteen  thousand  young  people  under  the  age  of 
twenty,  who  had  failed  to  keep  even  the  common 
law  of  the  land.  Most  of  these  young  people  had 
broken  the  law  in  their  blundering  efforts  to  find 
adventure  and  response  to  the  old  impulse  for  self- 
expression.  It  is  said  indeed  that  practically  the 
whole  machinery  of  the  grand  jury  and  of  the 
criminal  courts  is  maintained  and  operated  for  the 
benefit  of  youths  between  the  ages  of  thirteen  and 
twenty-five. 

"Possibly  these  fifteen  thousand  youths  were 
brought  to  grief  because  the  adult  population  as- 
sumed that  the  young  would  be  able  to  grasp  only 
that  which  is  presented  in  the  form  of  sensation; 
as  if  they  believed  that  youth  could  thus  early  be- 
come absorbed  in  a  hand  to  mouth  existence,  and 
so  entangled  in  materialism  that  there  would  be  no 
reaction  against  it.  It  is  as  though  we  were  deaf 
to  the  appeal  of  these  young  creatures,  claiming 
their  share  of  the  joy  of  life  flinging  out  into  the 
dingy  city  their  desires  and  aspirations  after  un- 
known realities,  their  unutterable  longings  for 
companionship  and  pleasure.  Their  very  demand 
for  excitement  is  a  protest  against  the  dulness  of 
life,  to  which  we  ourselves  instinctively  respond." 


CHILDHOOD  IN  THE  CITY        6i 

If  the  city  is  responsible  for  the  perplexities  and 
dangers  of  boyhood,  it  is  not  less  so  for  those  of 
girlhood;  for  the  old-time  modesty  which  distin- 
guished girls  in  general  is  a  thing  of  the  past,  and 
sports  and  vices  are  now  scarcely  determined  by 
sex.  City  conv-eniences — the  laundry,  the  bakery, 
the  dressmaker's  establishment — often  combine  to 
force  the  city  girl,  at  least  the  daughter  of  well- 
to-do  parents,  into  a  life  of  idleness,  incompetency 
and  finicality.  And  the  daughters  of  the  poor,  the 
girls  who  have  to  go  into  the  store,  the  factory  or 
the  restaurant,  are  confronted  in  the  matter  of  rec- 
reation, by  dangers  even  greater  than  those  which 
face  their  sisters  because  of  ennui.  Says  the  au- 
thor just  quoted:  "Never  before  in  civilization 
have  such  numbers  of  young  girls  been  suddenly 
released  from  the  protection  of  the  home  and  per- 
mitted to  walk  unattended  upon  city  streets  and  to 
work  under  alien  roofs;  for  the  first  time  they  are 
being  prized  more  for  their  labor  power  than  for 
their  innocence,  their  tender  beauty,  their  ephe- 
meral gaiety.  Society  cares  more  for  the  products 
they  manufacture  than  for  their  immemorial  abil- 
ity to  reaffirm  the  charm  of  existence. 

"In  every  city  arise  so-called  'palaces' — 'gin  pal- 
aces' they  are  called  in  fiction;  in  Chicago  we 
euphemistically  say  merely  'places,' — in  which  al- 
cohol is  dispensed,  not  to  allay  thirst,  but,  ostensi- 
bly to  stimulate  gaiety;  it  is  sold  in  order  to  empty 
pockets.  Huge  dance  halls  are  opened  to  which 
hundreds  of  young  people  are  attracted,  many  of 


62     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

whom  stand  wistfully  outside  a  roped  circle,  for 
it  requires  five  cents  to  procure  within  it  for  five 
minutes  the  sense  of  allurement  and  intoxication 
which  is  sold  in  lieu  of  innocent  pleasure.  These 
coarse  and  illicit  merrymakings  remind  one  of  the 
unrestrained  jollities  of  Restoration  London,  and 
they  are  indeed  their  direct  descendants,  properly 
commercialized,  still  confusing  joy  with  lust,  and 
gaiety  with  debauchery.  Since  the  soldiers  of 
Cromwell  shut  up  the  people's  playhouses  and  de- 
stroyed their  pleasure  fields,  the  Anglo-Saxon  city 
has  turned  over  the  provision  for  public  recreation 
to  the  most  evil-minded  and  the  most  unscrupulous 
members  of  the  community.  We  see  thousands  of 
girls  walking  up  and  down  the  streets  on  a  pleas- 
ant ev^ening  with  no  chance  to  catch  a  sight  of 
pleasure  even  through  a  lighted  windov/,  save  as 
these  lurid  places  provide  it.  Apparently  the  mod- 
ern city  sees  in  these  girls  only  two  possibilities, 
both  of  them  commercial;  first,  a  chance  to  utilize 
by  day  their  new  and  tender  labor  in  its  factories 
and  shops,  and  then  another  chance  in  the  evening 
to  extract  from  them  their  petty  wages  by  pander- 
ing to  their  love  of  pleasure." 

Of  the  demoralizing  influence  of  the  modern 
dance,  or  rather  the  acrobatics  and  contortions 
that  go  by  that  name,  there  is  scarcely  a  paper  or 
a  pulpit  that  does  not  give  warning.  In  a  sermon 
on  the  situation  in  New  York,  the  Rev.  Charles  A. 
Eaton  said:  "This  dancing  craze  is  nothing  but 
another  form  of  hysteria.     It  is  not  difficult  to 


CHILDHOOD  IN  THE  CITY         63 

remember  back  to  the  time  when  everyone  was 
bridge  crazy.  These  things  follow  one  after  the 
other.  I  do  not  wish  to  appear  as  alarmist,  nor  do 
I  wish  to  appear  so  narrow  minded  as  not  to  recog- 
nize the  need  and  the  right  of  the  people  of  our 
times  to  have  amusements  and  recreations,  but  I 
do  believe  that  the  hysterical  pursuit  of  pleasure 
through  which  we  are  now  passing  has  not  been 
equaled  in  this  world  since  the  days  of  ancient 
Rome,  when  the  people  paraded  the  streets  and 
begged  only  for  bread  and  play.  What  was  the 
result  in  ancient  Rome  may  be  the  result  in  modern 
New  York." 

The  present  European  war  was  even  foreshad- 
owed by  the  universal  craze  for  dancing,  accord- 
ing to  a  Norwegian  writer,  who  says,  in  part: 
"When  a  certain  period  of  culture  nears  its  termi- 
nation for  lack  of  new  ideas,  then  humanity  in  its 
search  for  a  fresh  path  to  follow  will  undergo  cer- 
tain psychological  symptoms,  which  a  careful  ob- 
server will  recognize  as  precursors  of  a  new  cul- 
tured epoch.  These  symptoms  are  of  a  more  or 
less  epidemical  character  and  spread  over  smaller 
or  larger  parts  of  the  world. 

"To  dance  is  nothing  abnormal  in  itself  is  the 
conclusion  drawn,  but  when  all  the  world  is  as  in 
a  frenzy,  when  there  is  dancing  on  all  the  stages, 
in  every  society,  and  serious  business  men  at  their 
old  age  start  to  learn  new  steps,  there  must  be 
something  wrong,  there  must  be  some  mental  de- 
fect in  humanity  which  forms  a  grave  symptom  of 


64     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

an  impending  social  decline." 

On  the  outskirts  of  a  village  in  northern  Michi- 
gan in  which  it  has  been  my  good  fortune  to  spend 
a  few  weeks  each  year,  for  a  decade  past,  there 
dwells  a  happy  family.  The  father  and  mother 
are  of  the  common  people.  The  children — two 
boys  and  two  girls — range  from  a  modest,  win- 
some little  girl  of  eight  to  a  manly  boy  of  fifteen. 
Opposite  the  humble  home  of  this  family  is  a  large 
green  pasture,  dappled  with  dandelions,  where 
roam  the  cows  of  the  villagers;  and  beyond  the 
pasture  is  a  little  swamp,  dark  with  the  foliage  of 
ash  and  cedar,  mysterious  with  strange  shrubs, 
small  animal  life  and  croakings  and  bubbles — just 
the  kind  of  a  place  a  child's  imagination  loves  to 
convert  into  an  African  jungle.  In  the  distance,  to 
the  right,  rise  high  hills  that  are  covered  with  for- 
est trees  and  blackberry  bushes;  while  along  their 
base  flows  a  swift  and  sparkling  trout  stream. 

What  a  contrast  is  childhood  in  that  little  Mi- 
chigan town  with  childhood  here  in  Boston — or  in 
any  other  big  city!  On  nearly  every  avenue  in 
many  sections  of  this  motley  city  saloons,  whose 
business  is  always  rushing,  spew  out  their  human 
wrecks,  to  reel,  tattered  and  blear-eyed,  among 
these  same  little  children.  It  is  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that  in  some  populous  quarters  of  the  city 
drunkards,  loafers  and  brawlers  are  practically  the 
only  grown  people  these  children  of  the  street 
come  in  contact  with  during  the  day.  What  will 
the  harvest  be?  How  will  these  children  turn  out? 


CHILDHOOD  IN  THE  CITY        65 

That  disorder,  violence  and  crime,  especially 
homicide,  are  on  a  rapid  increase  in  all  our  large 
cities,  well  informed  persons  are  aware.  Said  Po- 
lice Commissioner  Woods  in  an  address  before  the 
Harvard  Union  but  recently:  "The  strange  thing 
recently  is  that  the  greatest  amount  of  crime  has 
been  committed  by  small  boys,  the  second  genera- 
tion of  foreigners.  We  are  trying  to  study  what 
makes  these  boys  go  wrong.  It  seems  to  be  that 
the  young  immigrants  outgrow  their  parents,  learn 
with  rapidity  new  speech  and  customs,  laugh  at 
their  fathers'  long  beards,  and  the  strange  customs 
of  their  homes,  and  plunge  right  in  for  what  they 
consider  the  essence  of  American  life — to  get 
money." 

A  New  York  paper  in  a  recent  discussion  of  a 
new  and  alarming  form  of  lawlessness  said: 
"Gang  warfare  in  New  York  has  now  regularly 
assumed  the  aspect  of  pitched  battles  fought  out  in 
the  streets  with  bomb  and  revolver  and  with  cas- 
ualties as  heavy  as  in  many  a  Mexican  or  Cuban 
engagement.  The  evolution  of  the  gang  system 
has  proceeded  rapidly.  There  may  be  people  to 
whom  the  name  still  connotes  a  fortuitous  gather- 
ing of  idle  youth  whose  main  occupation  of  hang- 
ing about  the  corner  saloons  was  varied  by  incur- 
sions into  high-spirited  rowdyism.  But  that  stage 
has  been  long  outgrown.  Even  as  the  gang  weapon 
has  changed  from  the  convenient  cobble-stone  and 
beer-bottle  to  fire-arms  and  dynamite,  the  activi- 
ties of  the  gang  have  become  professionalized.  To 


66     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

be  sure,  the  political  functions  of  the  gang  have 
been  seriously  abated.  The  'gorilla'  as  a  factor  in 
doubtful  districts  on  election  day  is  a  vanishing 
type.  But  in  place  of  this  intermittent  occupation, 
with  its  correspondingly  low  opportunities  of  prof- 
it, there  has  been  developed  an  entire  class  of  gang 
activities  in  the  economic  field  to  which  it  is  high 
time  that  the  authorities  gave  their  complete  at- 
tention. 

"The  gangs  of  today  are  profitably  engaged  in 
the  white-slave  traffic  and  in  many  varieties  of 
blackmail,  in  addition  to  the  ancient  and  honora- 
ble occupations  of  burglary  and  highway  robbery. 
The  profits  of  the  trade  are  important  enough  for 
rival  gangs  to  engage  in  armed  warfare  for  con- 
trol of  the  business,  and  for  the  ambitious  to  fight 
for  leadership  within  the  gang.  The  methods  vary 
with  the  locality.  On  the  East  Side,  for  example, 
the  blackmailing  of  tradesmen  flourishes  to  an  ex- 
traordinary extent.  Horse-poisoning  is  a  favor- 
ite occupation,  and  heavy  amounts  are  annually  ex- 
torted from  business  men  and  livery  men  for  im- 
munity. The  sinister  feature  is  that  the  victims 
are  fast  coming  to  accept  the  situation  as  inevita- 
ble." 

Whence  come  the  members  of  these  marauding 
gangs  which,  together  with  an  ever-increasing  num- 
ber of  lawless  "strike-sympathizers,"  openly  chal- 
lenge the  constituted  authorities,  as  they  did  last 
year  in  Boston,  and  threaten  the  destruction  of  so- 
ciety itself?     What  was  the  childhood  environ- 


CHILDHOOD  IN  THE  CITY         67 

ment  of  these  hoodlums  and  anarchists?  It  was 
not  of  the  country  or  the  village,  but  of  the  city 
streets. 


CHAPTER  V 

Public  Manners 

IT  is  related  that  once  upon  a  time  a  man 
dropped  into  a  certain  newspaper  office  in 
Cleveland  and  informed  the  editor  of  his  pur- 
pose to  write  two  volumes — one  on  the  Cus- 
toms, and  the  other  on  the  Manners,  of  Cleveland. 
A  year  or  so  thereafter,  the  story  goes,  this  am- 
bitious writer  again  made  his  appearance  in  the 
editor's  sanctum  with  the  first  volume  of  his  work. 
"There,"  he  proudly  said,  "is  the  book."  "But," 
exclaimed  the  editor,  "where  is  the  other  volume 
you  were  to  write,  the  one  on  the  manners  of 
Clevelanders?"  "Well,"  ruefully  replied  the  au- 
thor, "I  found  there  was  a  lack  of  material.' 

While  it  is  not  true  that  "all  cities  are  alike," 
that  all  are  equally  delinquent  in  respect  to  their 
manners,  it  is  emphatically  true  that  in  none  of 
them  does  politeness  in  public  even  approach  the 
requirements  of  a  twentieth  century  civilization. 
When  contrasted  with  our  achievements  in  art, 
in  science  and  in  mechanics,  embodied  in  the  handi- 
work of  the  day  and  to  be  seen  all  about  us  in  per- 
fection and  splendor,  our  manners  verge  on  the 
barbarous. 

It  was  Henry  George  who  said  many  years  ago 
68 


PUBLIC  MANNERS  69 

that  although  our  material  advancement  had  made 
possible  the  Brooklyn  Bridge,  our  political  pro- 
gress had  not  enabled  us  to  prevent  dishonesty  in 
its  construction.  May  we  not  likewise  say  that, 
although  we  have  in  most  cities  fine  street  cars,  our 
manners  in  them  are  often  execrable;  that,  while 
we  take  a  just  pride  in  our  modern  thoroughfares, 
our  behavior  on  them  is  almost  universally  rude, 
— from  the  lack  of  courtesy  toward  others  on  the 
walk  to  the  running  down  of  our  fellows  by  auto- 
mobiles in  the  roadway?  And  in  the  tiieatre  we 
have  produced  stage  effects  that  are  marvelous  in 
their  beauty  and  realism;  while  the  orchestra  mu- 
sic leaves  nothing  to  be  desired, — unless  by  the 
poor  snare  drummer,  whose  ever- increasing  stunts 
he  might  well  wish  were  done  by  machinery, — but 
theatre  manners  are  bad. 

All  through  our  history,  the  persistent  criticism 
of  American  manners  by  foreign  visitors  and  Eu- 
ropeanized  Americans  has  naturally  led  to  fre- 
quent comparisons  of  our  social  usages  with  those 
of  other  countries.  For  a  long  time  we  suffered 
by  the  comparison.  American  travelers  abroad, 
mingling,  for  the  most  part,  only  with  the  well 
bred  people  of  the  higher  circles,  "would  contrast 
the  civilities  practiced  in  those  circles  with  the  un- 
polished habits  of  the  common  people  at  home. 
Then,  European  travelers  of  the  privileged  classes, 
humiliated  at  not  finding  any  lackeys  over  here, 
gave  us  an  unfavorable  reputation.  Many  exam- 
ples of  this  kind  of  criticism  are  to  be  found  in 


70     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

Mr,  John  Graham  Brooks'  entertaining  volume, 
"As  Others  See  us."  Again,  the  respectful  deport- 
ment of  the  early  immigrants  to  our  shores,  espec- 
ially during  the  first  months  of  their  stay,  made  u 
favorable  impression  upon  us.  We  no  longer  get 
such  people,  the  Anglo-Saxons,  in  any  considerable 
number.  Instead,  we  are  being  deluged  with  un- 
assimilable  semi-Asiatics  from  the  despotic  coun- 
tries of  southern  Europe.  May  we  check  this  im- 
migration before  it  is  too  late! 

Within  recent  years  there  has  been  a  change  of 
opinion  in  the  matter  of  comparative  manners. 
Any  candid  and  observing  American  that  has  trav- 
eled through  Europe  within  the  last  ten  years  will 
wonder  at  criticism  from  tiiat  quarter.  Such  a 
person  will  likely  agree  with  Brander  Matthews 
in  saying:  "The  more  familiar  and  impartial  the 
observer  may  be  with  the  social  usages  and  habits 
of  Great  Britain  and  the  continent  of  Europe,  the 
less  emphatic  will  be  his  feeling  that  the  foreign 
standard  is  really  superior  to  the  American." 

For  any  practical  purpose,  however,  the  superi- 
ority or  the  inferiority  of  foreign  manners  should 
count  for  little  with  the  patriotic  American  citizen. 
It  is  neither  a  clumsy  nor  a  spread-eagle  use  that  is 
here  made  of  the  word  patriotic;  the  term  is  used 
advisedly.  For  a  patriot  is  not  one  who  merely 
flaunts  the  flag  and  who  rises  in  the  church  or  the 
theatre  when  The  Star  Spangled  Banner  is  sung, 
glorious  as  is  the  flag  and  inspiring  as  is  the  song. 
A  patriot  is  simply  one  who  loves  and  serves  his 


PUBLIC  MANNERS  71 

country,  that  is,  his  fellow  citizens  who  compose 
his  country.  Nor,  as  the  world  of  to-day  is  be- 
ginning to  realize,  is  it  only  in  war  that  a  patriot 
can  serve  his  country.  In  fact,  the  statesman  who 
averts  a  war,  where  principle  is  not  sacrificed,  is  a 
truer  patriot  than  the  general  who  wins  victories 
on  the  field  of  battle. 

But  to  return  to  the  thought,  the  comparative 
politeness  of  nations  is  not  of  particular  moment. 
Nor  is  it  of  importance  whether  the  manners  of 
the  city  or  those  of  the  country  are  the  better. 
There  is  little  basis  for  comparison,  since  the  ele- 
ment of  numbers  largely  determines  the  proper 
conduct  of  t!ie  individual.  He  who  has  plenty  of 
elbow-room  may  act  accordingly.  7he  rights  of 
the  man  who  occupies  a  bed  alone  are  very  differ- 
ent from  those  of  the  fellow  who  is  unfortunate 
enough  to  be  one  of  the  proverbial  "three  in  a 
bed."  In  the  country  a  man  is  a  law  unto  himself. 
He  can  take  the  middle  of  the  road;  and  he  can 
indulge  to  his  heart's  content  in  whistling  or  sing- 
ing along  the  way.  He  can  eat  garlic  or  onions 
without  offending,  for  he  is  not  going  from  his 
dinner  table  into  a  crowded  theatre.  Thus,  rural 
rules  of  etiquette  do  not  and  need  not  coincide 
with  urban  rules. 

And  yet  how  small  a  percentage  of  the  people 
of  the  city  habitually  act  in  public  as  though  they 
knew  they  were  among  hundreds  or  thousands  of 
their  fellow  beings,  each  one  of  whom  has  mani- 
fold rights!     Do  we  not  daily  encounter  the  ecu- 


72     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

pie,  and  often  the  trio,  of  dolts  who,  oblivious  of 
their  surroundings  and  of  the  convenience  of  pass- 
ers-by, stand  and  carry  on  a  conversation  in  our 
pathway  as  we  would  step  from  the  street-crossing 
to  a  crowded  sidewalk?  And  these  obstructers  are 
not  in  the  main,  country  people,  innocently  indulg- 
ing in  country  customs,  nor  are  they  always  the  un- 
educated, paradoxical  as  the  term  dolt  as  applied 
to  them  here  may  seem;  on  the  contrary  they  com- 
prise all  classes  of  citizens.  One  would  suppose 
that  after  suffering,  themselves,  from  this  sort  of 
nuisance  day  after  day  for  perhaps  half  a  lifetime, 
these  people  that  block  the  way  would  learn  some- 
thing. It  should  be  the  duty  of  policemen  who 
stand  at  street-crossings  to  abate  this  nuisance  as 
much  as  possible,  though  seldom,  if  ever,  do  we 
see  an  officer  clear  the  sidewalk  at  the  approach  to 
a  crossing.  Until  the  police  do  take  action  in  this 
matter,  perhaps  as  effective  a  means  as  any  of 
teaching  manners  is  to  bump  the  obstructers  out  of 
the  way  in  Everett  True  fashion,  instead  of  meek- 
ly walking  out  into  the  gutter  to  get  by  them.  Pos- 
sibly they  might  then  learn  that  sidewalks  are 
meant  primarily  to  walk  on  and  not  to  stand  on. 
A  more  common  breach  of  good  manners  Is  the 
utter  disregard  of  the  law  that  pedestrians  must 
keep  to  their  right.  Possibly  there  can  be  no  hard 
and  fast  rule  about  this  while  walking  through  the 
crowded  shopping  districts;  for  experience  has 
shown  that  it  is  not  always  expedient  or  even  pos- 
sible in  such  situations  to  keep  to  the  right,  since 


PUBLIC  MANNERS  73 

streams  of  people  are  nearly  always  entering  or 
leaving  the  stores  along  the  way.  But  on  the  street- 
crossings  it  is  imperatively  demanded  that  we  keep 
to  the  right.  Lo  do  otherwise,  to  compel  our  fel- 
lows to  dodge  this  way  and  that,  is  not  only  dis- 
concerting but  frequently  leads  to  accidents  in  these 
days  of  swift-moving  cars  and  automobiles.  On  a 
crowded  street-crossing  there  should  be  the  dis- 
cipline of  the  army,  not  the  disorder  of  the  mob. 
The  deadly  work  of  the  automobile  in  our  city 
streets  is  at  last  forcing  officials  to  enact  and  en- 
force more  stringent  laws  for  the  protection  of  pe- 
destrians. A  statement  recently  addressed  to  the 
Governor  of  New  York  by  the  Secretary  of  State 
says  that  in  eleven  months  of  the  year  19 13  there 
were  967  persons  killed  and  6,107  persons  serious- 
ly injured  by  automobiles  in  the  State  of  New 
York!  Just  now  a  "Safety  First"  campaign  is  be- 
ing waged  in  the  city  newspapers.  But  for  one 
suggestion  looking  to  the  curbing  of  the  automo- 
bile, there  are  a  dozen  admonishing  the  citizen  to 
look  out  for  it.  Had  the  automobile  been  the  ne- 
cessity of  the  poor  instead  of  the  pleasure  of  the 
rich,  it  would  have  been  driven  from  crowded 
streets  long  ago.  Observe  the  course  that  was  tak- 
en with  the  bicycle,  the  convenience  of  the  poor, 
for  example.  Even  in  the  days  when  reforms 
moved  slowly,  the  bicycle  was  made  to  get  off  the 
sidewalk  and  take  to  the  street.  This  was  a  very 
proper  ruling,  to  be  sure;  but  if  the  bicycle  should 
be  forbidden  the  sidewalk,  how  much  more  ought 


74     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

the  ponderous,  death-dealing  automobile  be  barred 
from  the  crowded  city  streets ! 

Sometime,  possibly,  the  people  of  the  city, 
grown  tired  of  the  Court's  slap  on  the  wrist  admin- 
istered to  "speed-maniacs,"  will  rise  up  and  de- 
mand this  very  thing,  namely,  that  the  automobile, 
the  modern  car  of  Juggernaut,  be  banished  from 
the  down-town  streets.  It  had  no  right  there  in 
the  first  place ;  and  that  it  should  longer  be  allowed 
in  our  crowded  shopping  districts,  a  menace  to  life, 
is  a  reproach  on  municipal  gov^ernment.  In  the 
meantime,  one  of  several  conspicuous  placards  by 
which  the  city  fathers  might  inculcate  good  man- 
ners, and,  in  this  instance,  wise  precaution,  should 
read:  "Keep  to  your  Right."  The  bill  for  these 
signs  might  be  met  by  stiff  fines  imposed  on  the 
heathen  who  spit  on  the  walk. 

Of  all  public  places,  the  church  is  preeminently 
the  one  where  good  manners  should  be  looked  for. 
The  people  who  congregate  in  religious  edifices  are 
presumably  people  who  really  love  one  another, 
and  who,  therefore,  would  do  nothing  that  could 
interfere  with  the  enjoyment  of  the  service  by 
their  fellow-worshippers.  But  all  is  not  smooth 
even  here.  From  the  nuisance  of  much  whisper- 
ing, through  the  gamut  of  falling  hymn-books, 
the  crackling  of  programs  and  other  papers,  to 
women's  hats  that  hide  the  preacher  from  view,  a 
great  deal  of  offense  is  given.  We  often  hear  the 
question  raised  why  men  do  not  attend  church ;  oc- 
casionally the  discussion  takes  the  form  of  a  long- 


PUBLIC  MANNERS  75 

winded  symposium.  Passing  by  doctrinal  consid- 
erations, which  have  no  place  here,  it  might  be 
ventured  that  if  the  church  would  pattern  after 
the  theatre  in  having  sloping  aisles  and  in  requir- 
ing women  to  remove  their  large  hats,  more  men 
would  attend  the  services.  The  time  has  passed,  if 
it  ever  existed,  when  men  care  to  turn  a  religious 
service  into  a  penance.  Suppose  some  public 
spirited  city  newspaper  address  a  request  to  the 
clergymen  of  its  city  to  require  women  to  sit  with 
their  hats  oft  in  church.  Perhaps,  for  obvious  rea- 
sons, an  exception  might  be  made  on  Easter  Sun- 
day. 

It  is  in  the  theatre,  undoubtedly,  that  the  most 
common  and  the  most  exasperating,  if  not  the  most 
serious,  violation  of  good  manners  is  to  be  found. 
The  theatre  is  open  every  day — we  are  just  begin- 
ning to  wonder  why  the  church  is  not.  For  one 
person  who  attends  church  ten  go  to  the  theatre. 
Whether  or  not  this  is  a  healthy  social  sign,  the 
fact  itself  will  not  be  disputed.  People  go  to  the 
theatre  for  relaxation  and  entertainment.  Fur- 
thermore, they  pay  for  these  benefits,  many  of 
them  a  no  inconsiderable  part  of  theif  income.  Is 
it  not  important,  then,  that  they  should  be  per- 
mitted to  enjoy  the  program  undisturbed?  It  is 
not  only  important  but  in  all  moderation  it  may  be 
said  to  be  imperative. 

But  what  do  we  find  the  situation  to  be  in  near- 
ly every  theatre  today?  Needless  annoyance  of 
many  kinds.     The  following  excerpt  from  an  arti- 


76     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

cle  by  Betty  Bradeen  is  a  mild  criticism  of  some  of 
these  annoyances:  "There  is  considerable  com- 
plaint from  theatre  lovers  against  those  who  talk 
during  a  performance — they  say  with  justice  that 
intermissions  are  sufficiently  frequent  to  permit  all 
necessary  conversation.  Silence  should  be  the  rule 
at  such  places  for  the  sake  of  those  who  go  for  en- 
joyment of  the  play  and  for  no  other  reason — 
and  the  number  of  men  and  women  belonging  to 
the  first  class  is  sufficient  to  attract  attention  at 
least  if  they  choose  to  assert  their  right. 
I  have  often  wondered  why  people  spend  their 
money  where  they  are  sure  to  find  rudeness.  I 
wonder  why  more  do  not  take  the  straightforward 
course  of  complaint  against  those  who  care  noth- 
ing for  the  complaint  of  others.  I  sat  in  front  of 
a  woman  at  the  theatre  who  never  came  on  time 
and  never  ceased  talking  for  the  entire  evening, 
and  sat  there  one  night  each  week  for  a  whole 
year.  I  did  not  want  to  incur  her  enmity.  Finally, 
I  managed  to  have  my  seat  changed  and  her 
neighbors  made  it  so  uncomfortable  for  her  that 
she  was  glad  to  keep  quiet.  It  was  a  man  who 
brought  her  to  her  senses,  a  man  with  a  clear  idea 
of  his  own  rights  and  no  fear  of  consequences." 

A  similar  testimony  was  given  by  a  theatre-goer 
not  long  since.  "I  was  scarcely  seated,"  he  says, 
"when  two  fellows  took  seats  in  the  row  behind 
me  and  at  once  began  to  keep  time  to  the  music 
with  their  feet.  Of  course,  the  rattle  of  their  feet 
on  the  floor  was  very  soothing  to  my  nerves  and 


PUBLIC  MANNERS  77 

helped  me  to  appreciate  the  music.  When  they 
finally  got  tired  keeping  time,  they  lay  back  in  their 
seats,  one  of  them  bracing  his  knees  against  the 
back  of  my  seat,  and  shifting  about  just  often 
enough  to  make  me  feel  joyous.  Then  when  the 
curtain  rose  they  related  to  each  other,  as  if  all 
alone  in  the  house,  their  impressions  of  the  per- 
formers and  of  the  play." 

Now,  this  patron's  rights  were  clearly  violated, 
just  as  yours  are,  reader,  in  every  theatre.  But 
there  is  more  to  this,  for  this  particular  man  did 
not  do  as  most  of  us  would  have  done,  that  is  "let 
it  go,"  for  he  had  some  spirit  along  with  a  sense  of 
Iiis  rights;  so,  at  last,  when  he  realized  that  he  was 
likely  to  be  robbed  of  his  entertainment,  he  turned 
and  addressed  his  tormentors  thus:  "See  here,  I 
paid  fifty  cents  to  enjoy  this  show.  Now  you  put 
your  feet  on  the  floor,  keep  them  still  and  stop 
talking  or  I  will  have  you  put  out."  "Well,"  he 
continues,  "they  flushed  up,  but  after  a  minute  or 
two,  resumed  their  antics,  at  the  same  time  making 
sarcastic  remarks  about  finical  people.  I  said 
nothing  further  to  them,  but  got  up  and  went  back 
to  one  of  the  ushers  and  told  him  what  was  going 
on.  Now  this  usher  was  a  young  man  after  my 
own  heart;  for,  upon  my  pointing  out  the  two  of- 
fenders, he  gave  them  to  understand  that  a  contin- 
uation of  the  annoyance  would  insure  them  a  swift 
if  not  graceful  exit  from  the  house.  They  were 
as  quiet  as  proverbial  church  mice  during  the  re- 
mainder of  the  performance." 


78     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

Here  the  offenders  were  men.  But  observation 
will  show  that  women  are  quite  as  unmindful  of 
the  rights  of  those  around  them.  If  they  are  not 
as  noisy  with  their  feet  they  make  up  for  it  with 
their  tongues.  Indeed,  it  seems  as  if  the  chief  ob- 
ject of  some  women  in  going  to  the  theatre  is  to 
visit.     Possibly  their  telephones  are  out  of  order. 

In  this  discussion  of  manners,  let  us  not  be  mis- 
understood. The  curtailment  of  no  one's  liberty 
is  here  advocated,  for  it  is  no  one's  liberty  to  in- 
terfere with  any  one  else's  rights.  It  would  be 
well  could  the  ancient  idea  of  the  term  civility  be 
revived;  for  it  implied  "a  state  of  society  in  which 
the  relations  and  duties  of  a  citizen  are  recognized 
and  obeyed."  This  question  of  liberty  and  rights 
is  sometimes  sadly  confused.  We  have  all  heard, 
but  are  often  unmindful,  of  the  experience  of  the 
Irishman  who,  upon  landing  in  America,  stretched 
out  his  arms  in  appreciation  of  his  liberty.  One 
of  his  hands  accidentally  came  in  contact  with  an- 
other man's  nose.  Pat's  explanation  that  he 
thought  this  was  a  free  country  did  not  avail,  for 
his  victim  replied:  "This  is  a  free  country,  but 
your  freedom  ends  where  my  nose  begins." 

Speaking  again  of  the  theatre,  it  may  be  said 
that  the  three  great  reforms  in  this  generation  have 
been  the  substitution  of  fellow  players  in  the  pre- 
ceding act  for  the  audience  as  targets  for  ridicule; 
the  adoption,  only  after  a  terrible  lesson,  of  the 
asbestos  curtain,  together  with  the  ample  provision 
for  ?xit  ii)  case  of  iire;  and  the  order  for  the  re- 


PUBLIC  MANNERS  79 

moval  of  women's  hats  during  the  performance. 

It  is  doubtful  which  of  these  three  reforms  is 
the  most  appreciated  by  the  public.  Though  the 
first-mentioned  is  a  recent  innovation,  let  us  hope 
that  it  is  a  permanent  acquisition,  not  a  passing  fad. 
It  is  such  a  boon  that  we  scarcely  know  whether  to 
thank,  the  theatrical  manager  for  it,  or  to  condemn 
him  for  not  bringing  it  about  long  ago.  No  more 
outrageous  breach  of  good  manners  could  be  per- 
petrated on  a  patron  who  had  paid  his  money  os- 
tensibly for  entertainment  (only  to  cite  one  form 
of  offense)  than  the  old  custom  of  making  the  man 
whom  nature  had  deprived  of  hair  the  butt  of 
coarse  stage  jokes. 

Of  the  second  reform  it  may  be  said  that  it  was 
imperatively  demanded.  All  places  of  public  as- 
sembly should  insure  safety.  But  what  was  the 
use  of  going  to  the  theatre  if  one  could  not  see 
the  stage?  When  we  think  of  what  our  theatre- 
going  fathers  put  up  with  out  of  a  false  sense  of 
politeness  to  women,  we  cannot  but  believe  that 
right  then  they  atoned  for  many  of  their  short- 
comings. We  feel  thankful  for  a  dispensation  by 
virtue  of  which  we  may  sit  in  a  theatre  of  hatless 
heads. 

Still,  if  our  fathers  could  not  see  what  was  tak- 
ing place  on  the  stage  they  could  at  least  listen  to 
real  singing;  while  we  have  had  to  endure  the  bel- 
lowing tremolo, — and  just  because  some  silly  girl 
discovered  she  could  sing  while  shaking  in  a  chill 
—  (this  account  of  the  origin  of  the  tremolo  will 


8o     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

do  as  well  as  any  other.)  Oh,  how  we  have 
yearned  for  the  sweet  notes  of  the  olden  days! 
What  enthusiastic  applause  we  have  all  given  the 
occasional  singer  who,  having  an  appreciation  of 
the  melody  in  the  human  voice,  actually  sang !  And 
now  when  the  corrugated  tremolo  is  going  out  of 
fashion,  or  is  subsiding  into  a  faint  trill,  the  reci- 
tative song  is  coming  in.  Well  may  we  exclaim : 
"Are  we  never  to  hear  vocal  musk!  May  some 
bold  manager  rise  up  and  administer  a  quietus  to 
this  new  abomination — even  as  a  discriminating 
publisher  did  some  time  ago  to  the  dialect  story. 
The  modern  spoken  song,  with  its  awkward  tran- 
sition from  talking  to  singing,  is  a  species  of  vocal 
slops,  and  is,  it  is  safe  to  say,  a  bore  to  every  mu- 
sic lover  who  is  compelled  to  listen  to  it.  Novel- 
ty is  not  always  improvement. 

But  let  us  be  just.  Have  not  the  folk  on  the 
stage  a  good  cause  to  complain  of  a  cold-blooded 
audience,  an  audience  that  sits  unmoved  through 
a  worthy  performance?  That  there  are  such  au- 
diences theatrical  people  agree,  Mr,  William  H. 
Crane,  than  whom  no  one  is  better  qualified  to 
judge,  has  made  some  interesting  comparisons  of 
different  audiences.  He  says  "Clevelanders  smile 
where  Cincinnatians  chuckle,  Chicagoans  hee-haw 
and  Milwaukeeans  roar."  It  would  be  of  interest 
to  learn  his  opinion  of  a  Boston  audience  whose  re- 
peated encores  often  materially  lengthen  the  per- 
formance. It  is  Mr,  Crane's  opinion,  too,  that  a 
cold  audience  cheats  itself,  since  "players  who  are 


PUBLIC  MANNERS  8i 

not  encouraged  by  laughs  or  hands  lose  interest 
themselves  and  play  perfunctorily." 

Not  only  is  unnecessary  annoyance  caused  by  the 
ill  manners  of  individuals,  but  it  often  results  from 
thoughtlessness  in  the  construction  or  arrange- 
ment of  public  buildings.  When  we  consider  the 
attention  that  is  given  to  details  in  our  manufac- 
turing and  business  concerns  that  all  may  run 
smoothly,  it  is  astonishing  to  note  the  entire  lack 
of  such  attention  when  profits  are  not  at  stake, 
when  just  every-day  human  welfare  is  concerned. 
It  was  ten  years  before  the  owners  of  an  arcade 
building  in  a  certain  city  had  sense  enough  to  put 
the  words  "In"  and  "Out"  on  the  doors  through 
which  people  passed  all  day.  Of  course,  had  every- 
one that  went  in  and  out  been  thoughtful  enough 
to  keep  to  the  right,  no  trouble  would  have  result- 
ed; but  as  it  was,  people  were  constantly  running 
into  one  another  in  the  doorways. 

A  short  time  ago  a  citizen  who  had  been  trying 
to  write  a  postcard  on  a  shelf  designed  for  such 
purpose  in  a  city  post-office,  but  who  had  been 
bothered  by  one  of  those  dunces  who  think  the 
only  way  to  put  a  stamp  on  an  envelope  is  to  pound 
it  on  with  the  fist,  stepped  into  the  postmaster's 
private  office  and  stated  his  grievance,  politely  add- 
ing a  suggestion  that  a  placard  be  posted  on  the 
wall  above  the  shelf  forbidding  pounding  on 
stamps.  But  that  august  official,  with  the  true  in- 
stincts of  a  politician,  answered  that  the  people  had 
rights  and  that  he  was  not  the  man  to  take  them 


82     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

away.  It  was  In  vain  that  the  citizen  insisted  that 
he  himself  was  one  of  the  people  and  had  a  right 
to  use  the  shelf  for  the  purpose  for  which  it  was 
intended,  undisturbed  by  pile-drivers  who  were 
using  it  for  a  purpose  for  which  it  was  not  intend- 
ed. He  also  pointed  out  that  such  a  placard  would 
save  many  pens  and  holders  which  the  pounding 
caused  to  roll  on  to  the  floor.  But  the  postmaster 
was  not  concerned  about  that.  The  loss  did  not 
come  out  of  his  pocket.  It  is  to  be  feared  there 
are  too  many  such  patriots  in  the  public  service  of 
our  country,  some  of  them  higher  up  than  post- 
master. 

Manifestly,  any  consideration  herein  of  the  con- 
ventionalities of  etiquette  would  be  out  of  place. 
Doubtless  it  is  desirable  for  all  of  us  to  know  and 
to  practice  the  usages  of  polite  society; — to  say 
"thank  you"  instead  of  "thanks;"  to  say  "beg  par- 
don," instead  of  "what?"  in  reply  to  a  remark  we 
did  not  catch;  to  abstain  from  pointing  at  objects 
along  the  street;  to  hold  our  forks  in  the  correct 
position,  and  eat  "wet  dishes"  with  a  spoon.  For 
these,  and  countless  other  regulations  that  insure 
"good  form,"  there  are  reasons.  But  a  noncon- 
formity with  any  of  these  observances,  while  it 
may  offend  the  fastidious,  cannot  be  considered  an 
infringement  of  anyone's  rights.  Indeed,  the  per- 
son who  would  call  the  transgressor's  attention  to 
a  lapse  from  one  of  these  forms  of  decorum  would 
himself  commit  the  greater  offense. 

No,  It  is  not  the  politeness  demanded  by  the  hyp- 


PUBLIC  MANNERS  83 

ercritic  that  is  called  for  to  ameliorate  the  harsh 
conditions  imposed  by  the  vast  numbers  that  con- 
gregate or  that  cross  one  another's  path  in  the  city. 
It  is  just  an  applied  respect  for  the  rights  of  our 
fellow  men;  that  is  all. 

It  has  been  the  part  of  a  good-natured  philoso- 
phy to  condone  the  ill-manners  of  Americans,  just 
as  it  has  been  a  part  of  that  same  philosophy  to 
excuse  every  other  shortcoming  that  is  American. 
One  writer  of  prominence,  voicing  the  spirit  of 
this  philosophy,  says:  "In  America,  bad  manners 
are  caused  by  want  of  thought;  they  are  the  result 
of  carelessness  rather  than  wilfulness.  The  Amer- 
ican is  so  busy  minding  his  own  business  that  he 
has  no  time  to  be  as  regardful  of  the  rights  of 
others  as  he  ought  to  be." 

With  the  truth  of  this  statement,  few  will  find 
fault.  Though  partly  an  apology  and  partly  a 
justification,  it  aptly  characterizes  the  conduct  of 
the  American  as  it  has  always  been.  But  is  not  the 
time  come  to  cast  aside,  or  greatly  modify,  this  old 
pattern,  to  cease  being  "so  busy  minding  our  own 
business  that  we  have  no  time  to  be  regardful  of 
the  rights  of  others?"  There  are  more  than  ten 
times  as  many  people  in  this  country  today  as  there 
were  a  century  ago.  In  our  great  cities  a  tnan 
comes  in  contact  with  a  hundred  of  his  fellov/  be- 
ings where  his  forefathers  met  but  one  of  theirs. 
Furthermore,  these  hurrying  hundreds  that  he  jos- 
tles in  the  street  and  in  other  public  places  are,  for 
the  most  part,  strangers  who  cannot  be  expected 


84     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

to  overlook  a  rudeness  as  would  the  friends  or 
acquaintances  of  the  olden  time.  "In  America  bad 
manners  are  caused  by  want  of  thought," — but 
this  excuse  will  not  restore  an  eye  that  has  been 
poked  out  by  an  umbrella  carelessly  handled. 
Want  of  thought  where  the  rights  of  others  are 
concerned  is  a  kind  of  selfishness  which  it  behooves 
us  all  to  be  on  our  guard  against.  Strictly  speak- 
ing, even  where  one  is  not  called  upon,  in  the 
cause  of  good  manners,  to  do  things  in  the  serv- 
ice of  his  fellow  man,  how  gracious  an  act  it  is  to 
do  them !  "A  man  stoops  to  pick  a  banana  peeling 
from  the  sidewalk  and  throw  it  in  the  gutter,  and 
his  companion  comments :  'You  are  not  paid  to 
do  that.'  Nor  is  he,  neither  is  he  paid  for  care- 
fully depositing  rubbish  of  his  own  in  the  box  pro- 
vided for  that  purpose.  Nor  does  the  traveler 
who  turns  off  the  light  when  he  leaves  his  hotel 
room  find  his  bill  reduced."  Nevertheless,  such  a 
regard  for  the  welfare  of  others  is  real  patriotism. 
There  is  no  gold  lace  about  it,  no  fife  and  drum, 
by  the  magic  music  of  which  even  the  poltroon  is 
often  galvanized  into  a  hero.  But  in  these  days 
the  habitual  regard  for  the  rights,  even  the  minor 
rights,  of  our  fellow  citizens  is  the  kind  of  patriot- 
ism that  is  most  needed. 

We  have  all  become  familiar,  through  widely 
published  statistics,  with  the  fact  that  insanity  and 
nervous  breakdown  are  rapidly  increasing  in  our 
country,  especially  in  our  large  cities.  "We  live 
too  fast,"  the  medical  men  tell  us.     Doubtless  the 


PUBLIC  MANNERS  85 

strain  of  ever  increasing  competition  in  business, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  dissipations  in  which  re- 
lief from  it  is  sought,  on  the  other,  are  the  pri- 
mary causes  of  this  degeneracy.  But  everything 
that  discommodes,  that  irritates  and  vexes,  occa- 
sions friction  and  increases  the  wear  and  tear  of 
body  and  mind;  and  tells,  in  the  long  run,  on  the 
health.  Our  city  authorities,  in  recognition  of  this 
fact,  are  now  following  the  lead  of  the  old-world 
cities  in  taking  action  to  suppress  needless  noises, 
such  as  screeching  car-wheels,  raucous  automobile 
horns,  excessive  blowing  of  locomotive  whistles, 
and  cries  of  street  vendors.  Even  the  church  bell, 
the  subject  of  many  a  lyric  in  the  olden  time,  is 
challenged  of  its  right  to  ring.  All  of  these  pro- 
hibitions are  proposed  in  the  cause  of  public  health. 
Can  it  not  likewise  be  urged,  in  the  light  of  the 
discussion  in  this  chapter,  that  the  ill  manners  of 
the  many  whom  the  city  dweller  meets  day  after 
day  have  a  hurtful  effect  on  his  health?  Unfortu- 
nately, it  is  not  possible  in  most  cases  to  prohibit 
rudeness  by  law.  But  the  man  or  the  woman  who, 
in  a  public  place,  respects  the  rights  of  others  is, 
to  that  extent,  a  conservator  of  human  health. 


CHAPTER  VI 
Publicity:  Good  and  Bad 

DURING  the  last  decade  of  our  history 
there  has  been  both  an  insistent  de- 
mand for,  and  a  persistent  practice  of 
pubhcity.  But  there  are  many  kinds 
of  pubhcity,  and  the  kind  that  has  been  demanded 
has  been  furnished  grudgingly,  while  the  sort  vol- 
unteered has  been  supplied  ad  nauseam. 

Of  the  publicity  demanded — by  the  press,  by 
magazine  writers  and  by  politicians  seeking  favor 
with  the  voters, — it  may  be  said  that  it  has  chiefly 
concerned  private  and  quasi-public  corporations. 
These  corporations  are,  of  course,  conducted  pri- 
marily for  profits.  When  we  read  in  Adam 
Smith's  "Wealth  of  Nations"  the  doubt  expressed 
as  to  the  success  of  the  corporate,  as  compared 
with  the  individual  and  partnership  form  of  enter- 
prise, we  smile,  just  as  we  smile  when  we  think  of 
that  early  nineteenth  century  scientist's  assertion 
that  it  would  not  be  possible  for  a  steamship  to 
cross  the  Atlantic,  as  the  weight  of  the  coal  neces- 
sary to  furnish  steam  would  sink  it;  or  again  as 
we  do,  when  we  read  the  conclusion  of  one  of  our 
early  statesmen  that  the  "Great  American  Desert" 
would  never  be  fit  for  cultivation.     Any  doubt  as 

86 


PUBLICITY :  GOOD  AND  BAD        87 

to  the  prowess  of  the  corporation  vanished  long 
ago.  The  last  forty  years  have  witnessed  an  in- 
\asion  of  tlie  institution  into  every  branch  of  busi- 
ness, Irom  railroading  down  to  shoe  polishing, 
and  today,  corporate  enterprise  in  everything  ex- 
cept agriculture,  is  the  rule,  private  and  partner- 
ship undertakings  being  the  exception.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  more  than  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  wealth 
of  the  country  (placed  by  the  World  Almanac  for 
19 14  at  $130,000,000,000)  is  owned  by  corpor- 
ations. Eliminating  agricultural  property,  the  es- 
timate of  the  wealth  so  owned  is  over  eighty  per 
cent. 

Thus  far,  however,  it  has  not  been  the  large 
profits  of  the  corporation  that  have  prompted  the 
demand  for  publicity  concerning  its  operations;  or, 
perhaps,  it  would  be  more  correct  to  say  that  this 
consideration  has  not  generally  been  the  cause  of 
the  demand.  An  exception  exists  in  the  case  of 
public-service  corporations,  especially  where  there 
has  been  a  marked  sentiment  in  favor  of  municipal 
ownership.  There  the  demand  for  a  statement  of 
profits,  with  a  view  to  securing  lower  rates,  has 
been  quite  insistent.  But  the  corrupting  of  the 
law-making  bodies,  municipal,  state  and  national, 
by  corporations,  resulting  on  the  one  hand  in  a 
violation  of  the  sanctions  of  government  and  on 
the  other  in  giving  such  corporations  great  advan- 
tages over  the  individual,  was  the  first  occasion 
for  the  light  of  publicity  upon  them.  The  creation 
of  values  by  watering  stocks  and  the  over-issue  of 


88     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

stocks,  next  received  attention.  Then  the  search- 
light was  directed  upon  the  discrimination  in 
freight  rates  by  railroads,  the  issue  of  passes  and 
the  bestowal  of  other  benefits  upon  the  favored 
few. 

As  a  consequence  of  the  disclosures  resulting 
from  this  kind  of  publicity,  stringent  legislation  has 
within  recent  years  been  enacted  in  nearly  all  the 
states  affecting  the  chartering  and  operations  of 
corporations.  The  Secretaries  of  State,  the  Rail- 
road, Insurance  and  Public  Service  Commis- 
sioners, have  been  given  wide  inquisitorial  powers 
concerning  them;  and  detailed  reports  of  their 
status  must  now  be  made  by  them.  In  fact,  so 
drastic  are  the  laws  and  supervision  in  some  of  the 
states  as  virtually  to  place  a  corporation  in  a  strait- 
jacket.  One  can  appreciate  the  feelings  of  that 
Mississippi  banker  who  notified  the  depositors  to 
come  and  get  their  money,  as  the  bank  was  going 
out  of  business  for  fear  the  legislature  then  in  ses- 
sion would  make  it  a  criminal  offense  to  do  a  bank- 
ing business.  But  while  the  bright  light  of  pub- 
licity may  cause  the  officers  of  corporations  to 
blink,  the  people  at  large  can  look  on  with  satis- 
faction, feeling  that  by  the  aid  of  that  light  they 
may  see  what  is  wrong  and  learn  how  to  right  it. 

A  few  words  now  concerning  a  form  of  public- 
ity that  is  as  new  as  is  scientific  advertising.  It  is, 
in  fact,  a  species  of  advertising.  I  refer  to  the 
politician's  exploitation  of  the  public's  attention, 
allusion  to  which  propensity  was  made  in  the  earlier 


PUBLICITY :  GOOD  AND  BAD        89 

pages  of  this  book.  This  art  of  self-advertising 
has  given  rise  to  a  remark  which  may  be  said  to 
have  already  acquired  the  force  of  an  axiom: 
"Toot  your  own  horn  or  it  will  remain  untooted." 
And  what  an  ever-  increasing  blare  and  din  of 
horns  there  has  been  throughout  the  land  during 
the  last  fourteen  years,  or  since  the  new  century  be- 
gan !  The  old  fashioned  statesman,  so  quiet  and 
dignified,  with  his  charming  sense  of  modesty,  has 
disappeared,  together  with  the  high  hat  and  long- 
tailed  coat  he  wore.  A  new  set  of  men  have  come 
to  the  front.  They  wear  derby  hats  and  business 
suits,  and  in  their  quest  of  office  they  pursue  busi- 
ness methods.  Prosaic  in  appearance,  they  are 
nevertheless  born  actors,  and  actors  of  the  melo- 
dramatic type.  How  boldly  they  rush  on  to  the  ice 
— after  it  has  been  found  to  be  safe !  How  they 
"thunder  in  the  index"  of  "glittering  generalities," 
their  vague  cries  for  "humanity"  and  "human 
rights"  alternating  with  self-glorification  over  what 
they  have  done  or  will  do  for  the  dear  people  1  In 
every  campaign,  and  between  campaigns,  the  office 
seeker  "toots  his  own  horn,"  in  speeches,  in  ar- 
ranged interviews,  and,  (if  he  is  big  enough)  in 
editorials  of  papers  owned  or  controlled  by  him- 
self. Personal  publicity  bureaus  and  carloads  of 
boosting  reporters!  Whoever  heard  of  these 
things  in  the  days  of  Grant  and  Tilden  and  Sher- 
man and  Thurman? 

But  advertising  pays,  and  so,  at  least  until  the 
general  public  becomes  more  discerning,  and  can 


90     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

tell  shoddy  from  wool,  the  advertising  politician 
will  be  with  us.  In  any  city,  the  politician  who 
keeps  his  name  in  the  papers  is  the  successful  one. 
People  think  they  know  him  because  of  his  ubiqui- 
tous name,  whereas,  they  do  not  really  know  him 
at  all.  The  masses — and  they  cast  the  great  ma- 
jority of  the  votes — do  not  draw  the  line  very 
closely  between  fame  and  notoriety.  They  are  too 
absorbed  in  getting  a  living  to  inquire  into  the  of- 
fice-seeker's character  and  qualifications,  and  so 
they  readily  take  a  candidate's  own  estimate  of 
himself.  They  go  further  and  become  enthusi- 
astic over  this  self-advertised  product;  and  in  the 
case  of  an  advertising  executive,  especially,  wheth- 
er mayor,  governor  or  president,  they  will  go  any 
length  with  him  in  his  efforts  (very  common  just 
now)  to  be  "the  whole  thing."  But  this  opens 
the  question  of  executive  encroachment,  vital 
enough  for  a  volume,  but  foreign  to  our  present 
purpose. 

A  former  president  of  the  United  States,  a  gen- 
tleman and  statesman  of  the  old  school,  at  least 
so  far  as  modesty  and  ability  go,  laments,  in  a 
magazine  article,  his  lack  of  advertising  qualifi- 
cations, which  lack  he  modestly  ascribes  to  his  ju- 
dicial training,  instead  of  to  his  high  sense  of  pro- 
priety. But  whatever  the  reason  for  the  lack, 
thinking  people  with  long  memories  are  thankful 
for  it. 

A  distinction  should  be  made  between  the 
preaching  and  the  boasting  politician.    The  form- 


PUBLICITY:  GOOD  AND  BAD        91 

er  may  be  of  some  service  to  his  country,  while  the 
latter  is  a  bore  at  best.  There  is  little  danger  from 
an  excess  of  political  preaching,  provided  it  does 
not  teach  anarchy.  For  in  this  sordid  world  po- 
litical ideals — ideals  of  economic  and  social  jus- 
tice— are  a  proper  accompaniment  of  the  spiritual 
ideals  proclaimed  from  the  pulpit.  The  more  we 
have  of  it  the  better  it  will  be  for  us. 

Of  all  the  agencies  of  publicity,  the  press  is,  of 
course,  the  most  far-reaching  and  prolific.  It  is 
difficult,  indeed,  for  the  modern  mind  to  conceive 
of  any  considerable  degree  of  publicity,  or  even  of 
civilization,  without  it.  And  yet  but  three  or  four 
generations  ago  the  press  cut  a  comparatively  small 
figure  in  the  dissemination  of  news;  for  in  the 
opening  days  of  the  republic,  when  we  were  a  ru- 
ral people,  newspapers  were  few.  In  fact,  there 
were  at  that  time  only  three  or  four  daily  papers 
and  but  two  score  weekly,  semi-weekly  and  month- 
ly publications  in  the  entire  country.  The  hap- 
penings of  most  communities  were  made  known 
by  the  village  gossip,  and  the  news  of  distant 
places  was  carried  by  the  stage-driver  or  the  sea- 
captain. 

To  the  citizen  of  today  whose  "breakfast  is  not 
complete"  without  the  morning  paper  with  its 
luminous  account  of  a  world's  daily  doings,  the 
newspaper  of  his  forefathers  would  be  a  curiosity. 
He  would  look  in  vain  through  its  four  small 
pages  for  matter  such  as  now  greets  his  eye  in  any 
daily  paper.     No  startling    headlines    would    ap- 


92     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

prize  him  of  a  fresh  intrigue  in  Europe  or  of  a 
horrible  crime  committed  the  day  before  in  some 
distant  city  in  his  own  country;  for  such  news 
would  be  from  three  days  to  three  months  old  be- 
fore it  became  known  to  him.  And  what  items  the 
paper  might  contain  would  appear  in  an  almost 
unintelligible  form,  no  pains  being  taken  to  present 
it  in  an  orderly  manner.  In  the  place  of  news  by 
telegraphic  dispatch,  would  be  found  letters  from 
friends  who  were  visiting  in  some  other  town,  or 
roughing  it  in  what  was  then  the  far  West.  In- 
stead of  crisp  editorial  squibs  would  be  found  pro- 
lix moralizing  on  the  evils  of  gossip,  theatre  going, 
card  playing,  and  intemperance.  In  the  field  of 
politics  the  tone  of  the  press  of  that  early  period 
was  as  coarse  and  abusive  as  the  press  of  a  century 
later  was  cynical  and  time-serving. 

Within  the  last  twenty  years  the  press  has  be- 
come more  independent  in  politics  than  ever  be- 
fore, many  of  the  most  influential  papers  having 
no  afiiliation  whatever  with  any  party.  And  yet, 
however  much  such  non-partisan  papers  are  to  be 
commended  for  their  independence  in  politics,  it 
is  almost  precisely  this  element  of  the  press  that  is 
the  worst  offender  in  what  constitutes  the  chief 
faults  of  the  press  today.  The  staid  party  organs, 
for  the  most  part,  have  a  dignity  and  self-respect 
that  forbids  sensationalism.  The  independent 
papers,  on  the  other  hand,  are  neither  owned  nor 
controlled  by  men  interested  in  party  success,  but 
by  men  who  are  primarily  after  profits;  and  a 


PUBLICITY :  GOOD  AND  BAD        93 

large  circulation  being  essential  to  large  profits, 
they  cater  to  the  curiosity  and  imagination,  to  put 
it  mildly,  of  the  masses  to  insure  that  circulation. 
Now  what  are  the  chief  faults  of  tiie  press  to- 
day? The  first  and  foremost  is  undoubtedly  the 
ruthless  invasion  of  private  rights  and  the  sanctity 
of  family  relations.  In  the  village  no  one  is  so 
contemptible  and  so  detested  as  the  scandal-mon- 
gering  gossip.  Now  what  such  a  pest  is  to  the  vil- 
lage community,  many  a  newspaper  is  to  the  city 
— it  is  a  pity  that  condemnation  is  not  likewise 
general.  No  sooner  is  a  divorce  suit  filed,  espec- 
ially where  prominent  people  are  parties  to  it, 
than  these  jackals  send  reporters  to  the  house  of 
trouble  and  there  the  insinuating  threat  is  often 
conveyed  that  unless  the  facts  are  given  to  this 
emissary  they  will  be  obtained  anyhow.  Once  ob- 
tained, they,  the  secret,  if  not  sacred,  things  of  the 
family  life  which  in  no  way  concern,  nor  should 
interest,  the  public,  are  published  broadcast.  Of- 
ten a  twist  is  given  to  the  facts  that  changes  the 
whole  aspect  of  the  case,  and  serves  to  embitter 
or  humiliate  those  concerned.  This  impertinent 
prying  into  private  affairs  is  carried  into  many 
other  personal  matters  as  well;  and  it  is  not  alone 
the  one  who  is  in  trouble  that  is  subject  to  unpleas- 
ant notoriety,  but  if  he  be  prominently  connected, 
his  relatives  must  be  brought  in  also.  The  only 
circumstance  in  mitigation  of  the  harm  done  by 
such  publicity  is  that  in  the  city  one's  circle  of 
acquaintances  is  narrow.     Not  so  many  people  as 


94     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

in  a  village  stare  at  him  because  of  the  news- 
paper's zeal  in  publishing  "news." 

Of  this  fault  of  the  press,  the  veteran  editor, 
Col.  Henry  Watterson,  in  an  address  before  news- 
paper men  some  time  ago,  used  the  following  vig- 
orous language :  "Pretending  to  be  the  especial 
defenders  of  liberty,  we  are  becoming  the  invad- 
ers of  private  right.  No  household  seems  any 
longer  safe  against  intrusion.  Our  reporters  are 
being  turned  into  detectives.  As  surely  as  this  be 
not  checked  we  shall  grow  to  be  objects  of  fear 
and  hatred,  instead  of  trust  and  respect.  Some 
one,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "ought  to  organize  an 
intelligent  and  definite  movement  toward  the  bet- 
tering of  what  has  reached  alarming  propor- 
tions. I  say  this  in  your  interest  as  well  as  the  in- 
terest of  the  public  and  the  profession,  for  I  am 
sure  that  you  are  gentlemen  and  want  to  be  con- 
sidered so,  whereas  the  work  you  are  often  set  to 
do  is  the  reverse  of  gentlemanly.  It  subjects  you 
to  aversion  and  contempt — brings  you  and  a  high 
and  mighty  calling  into  disrepute  by  confusing  the 
purpose  and  function  of  the  newspaper  with  those 
of  the  police  and  the  scavenger."  These  are  strong 
words;  had  they  been  uttered  by  a  layman,  doubt- 
less they  would  have  been  treated  by  the  press  in 
a  jocose  spirit.  Smart  editors  would  have  had 
much  sport  with  the  man  who  was  so  ignorant  of 
the  proper  functions  of  journalism. 

If  the  invasion  of  private  right  ranks  first 
among  the  faults  of  the  press,  misrepresentation 


PUBLICITY :  GOOD  AND  BAD        95 

closely  follows.  We  are  all  familiar  with  the 
saying,  "You  can't  believe  what  you  see  in  the 
papers,"  a  dictum  which  is  too  sweeping,  per- 
haps, hut  which  has  much  evidence  to  justify  it. 
Who  has  not  often  read  a  "write-up"  of  some 
person  or  of  some  occurrence  that  he  knew  to  be 
almost  pure  fiction?  Newspaper  men  are,  of 
course,  only  human  and  so  are  liable  to  make  mis- 
takes in  spite  of  the  best  intentions.  Where  no 
person  or  cause  is  injured  by  the  publication  of 
an  incorrect  report,  little  harm  is  done.  But  is 
sufficient  care  and  conscience  exercised  in  cases 
where  a  person,  or  a  cause  may  be  injured  by  such 
perversion  of  truth?  It  cannot  be  said  that  there 
is.  The  effort  to  be  sensational  and  thus  increase 
the  circulation  of  the  paper  seems  almost  to  pre- 
clude this. 

Of  "yellow  journalism"  Major  J.  C.  Hemp- 
hill, another  veteran  editor  of  the  chivalrous 
Southland,  in  an  address  at  Yale  College,  spoke 
as  follows : 

"The  press  in  these  abundant  times,  speaking 
generally,  is  in  the  business  for  the  money  there  is 
in  it.  The  most  potent  force  in  shaping  and  di- 
recting the  thought  and  sentiment  of  the  country, 
it  is  yet  a  beggar  at  the  door  of  patronage.  Little 
or  no  independence  is  actually  possessed  by  the 
journalists  who  preach  independence.  It  must  be 
said,  however,  to  the  credit  or  discredit,  as  you 
please,  of  the  public,  that  it  reflects  largely  the 
character  of  the  newspapers  by  which  it  is  served. 


96     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

"The  yellow  streak  runs  not  less  through  the 
press  than  through  the  people.  The  shame  of  the 
press  is  that  it  has  catered  to  the  worst  tendencies 
of  a  corrupt  and  malodorous  age.  Its  mission 
ought  to  be  the  elevation  of  the  public;  instead 
it  advertises  its  degradation;  fairly  shrieking 
against  any  restriction  upon  its  liberty,  it  converts 
liberty  into  license. 

"Broadly  speaking,  the  most  sensational  and 
irresponsible  newspapers  make  the  most  money 
and  there  has  been  noted  for  years  the  gradual  de- 
gradation of  the  American  press  to  the  American 
level. 

"There  is  no  profession  so  exacting,  none  re- 
quiring so  extensive  and  accurate  knowledge  of 
history  and  philosophy  and  political  economy, 
none  calling  for  so  great  patience  of  opposition, 
such  clearness  and  firmness  of  judgment,  such 
courage  of  conviction,  and  such  careful  regard  for 
the  rights  of  others.  That  is  why,  in  my  opinion, 
the  newspaper  should  be,  in  fact,  the  judge  and 
jury  and  not  the  swift  witness  or  the  paid  counsel- 
lor in  the  case  on  trial  before  the  people  *  *  *. 
That  newspaper  is  unworthy  which  for  personal 
profit  or  political  gain  for  itself  or  its  party,  mis- 
represents the  position  of  a  professional  or  politi- 
cal rival;  that  follows  any  particular  course  be- 
cause it  is  popular;  that  joins  in  the  defamation  of 
any  man  because  there  is  something  to  be  made 
out  of  it  whether  in  the  way  of  Increased  circula- 
tion or  adventitious  importance." 


PUBLICITY :  GOOD  AND  BAD        97 

Perhaps  if  the  kind  of  newspaper  here  described 
would  practice  the  Golden  Rule  instead  of  the  fan- 
cied rule  of  business,  it  would,  in  the  long  run, 
discover  that  the  Golden  Rule  is  the  real  rule  of 
business. 

A  form  of  publicity  that  is  of  service  to  a  city, 
but  which  has  not  received  sufficient  encourage- 
ment, is  the  People's  Column,  the  Forum,  the  Edi- 
tor's Mail,  &c.,  as  communications  of  newspaper 
readers  are  variously  styled.  A  generation  ago  let- 
ters from  the  reader  to  the  editor  of  a  paper  were 
few.  And  they  were  expected  to  indorse  the  edi- 
tor's views.  Woe  to  the  writer  who  dared  to  dis- 
sent, especially  if  his  letter  was  faulty  in  grammar 
or  diction,  for  the  chances  were  that  he  would  be 
so  lampooned  as  to  deter  him  and  others  of  his 
kind  from  making  any  further  expressions  of  opin- 
ion. Today  communications  of  readers  receive 
respectful  consideration  and  are  generally  pub- 
lished as  a  matter  of  course.  I  know  of  but  three 
or  four  metropolitan  papers  where,  judging  from 
the  monotonous  adulation  of  the  contributions,  a 
writer  is  expected  to  indorse  the  paper's  views. 

It  is  not,  however,  of  letters  in  criticism  of  the 
paper's  views  that  I  would  speak,  but  of  those  that 
deal  with  matters  of  concern  to  the  citizen,  with  lo- 
cal abuses  and  reforms,  which  the  editor  and  the 
reporter  fail  to  discuss — for  these  functionaries, 
Argus-eyed  though  they  be,  cannot  sec  everything 
of  interest  that  is  going  on;  nor  are  they  omni- 
scient. 


98     CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

I  have  said  that  the  writing  of  letters  is  not 
sufficiently  encouraged.  But,  in  justice  to  the 
newspaper,  it  may  be  said  that  the  paucity  of  com- 
munications has  another  explanation,  at  least  in 
part.  Now  it  is  true  that  we  seldom  see  an  urgent 
invitation  to  the  reader  to  send  in  anything — un- 
less on  the  society  page  he  is  invited  to  try  his 
hand  at  defining  a  true  lady  or  a  perfect  gentleman 
for  the  dollar  prize,  or  else,  on  the  fiction  page, 
he  is  urged,  in  competition  for  another  dollar 
prize,  to  write  the  concluding  chapter  of  the  thril- 
ling drama,  "The  Eavetroughs  of  New  York," — 
everything  else  in  that  city  having  already  been 
dramatized.  But  is  there  not  something  wrong 
with  the  public  spirit  of  a  city  of  a  million  people 
when  in  none  of  its  papers  are  found  more  than  a 
half  dozen  letters  from  the  readers?  Are  there 
not  hundreds,  yes,  thousands,  of  bright  men  and 
women  in  such  a  vast  city  that  could  offer,  in  a  few 
lines,  suggestions  founded  on  their  observation  or 
experience,  that  would  make  for  the  welfare  of 
the  city?  And  is  it  not  their  patriotic  duty  to  do 
so?  Many  a  nuisance  might  be  abated,  many  a 
graft  exposed,  many  a  reform  brought  about,  if 
citizens  would  tell  the  public  through  the  news- 
paper what  they  know  of  specific  cases.  A  citizen 
of  Boston  notices,  day  after  day,  that  horses  fall 
on  a  certain  steep  thoroughfare  in  that  city.  He 
writes  to  one  of  the  papers  about  it,  suggesting 
that  something  be  put  on  that  highway  that  will 
prevent  the  horses  from  falling.     A  few  days  af- 


PUBLICITY :  GOOD  AND  BAD        99 

terward  this  is  done;  and  the  newspaper  frankly 
gives  the  citizen  the  credit  for  the  service.  A  lady 
in  another  city  calls  attention  to  the  tobacco  juice 
expectorated  on  the  steps  of  the  street  car  by  the 
motorman,  much  to  the  damage  of  women's  skirts; 
and  an  investigation  is  made.  A  citizen  of  another 
city  writes  in  condemnation  of  the  practice  of  mer- 
chants in  using  excessive  quantities  of  salt  to  melt 
the  snow  on  the  sidewalk,  whereby  the  shoes  of 
pedestrians  are  ruined.  The  girls  employed  in  an 
office  building  of  still  another  city  tell,  in  a  news- 
paper communication,  what  they  propose  to  do 
to  make  thoughtless  or  selfish  men  move  back  in 
the  elevator,  so  the  girls  can  get  in  without  a 
struggle.  I  have  a  friend,  quite  a  traveler,  who 
makes  it  his  business,  if  he  sees  a  city  derelict  in 
any  particular,  to  write  the  leading  newspaper  of 
that  city  about  it.  He  believes  that  seed  thus  sown 
will  strike  root. 

There  is  a  great  field  of  civic  usefulness  in  these 
letters  from  the  habitual  or  occasional  reader;  and 
the  People's  Column  should  be  expanded  into  a 
page. 

Those  ill  manners  which,  as  we  have  seen  in  the 
preceding  chapter,  rob  polite  people  of  their 
rights,  might,  in  a  great  measure,  be  corrected  by 
publicity.  In  the  chapter  referred  to,  the  barbar- 
ous manners  in  the  average  theatre  were  discussed. 
Some  of  them  are  of  such  long  standing  as  to  seem 
as  a  heritage  from  the  past,  and, like  the  principle 
of  monarchy  in  old  China,  everlasting.     But  the 


loo  CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AxMELIO RATION 

world  waked  up  one  morning  to  find  China  a 
full-fledged  republic;  and  so  it  may  happen  that 
theatre-goers  will  soon  enter  a  theatre  as  suddenly 
made  the  place  of  good  manners,  where  all  may 
enjoy  the  play  undisturbed. 

The  theatre  management  should  take  measures 
to  enforce  decorum.  Within  recent  years  a  few 
timorous  attempts  have  been  made  in  many  play- 
houses. Babies  have  been  barred  from  the  house 
and  late  arrivals  forbidden  to  take  their  seats  dur- 
ing an  act.  But  a  much  more  drastic  policy  is 
called  for.  Those  unesthetic  advertisements  of 
toilet  powders  and  creams  and  chewing  gum  that 
are  to  be  seen  on  many  a  stage  curtain  should  give 
place  to  a  big-lettered  proclamation  something  like 
this: 

Rules  of  This  Theatre. 

Patrons  must  not  annoy  those  around  them. 

They  must  keep  their  feet  on  the  floor  and  keep 
them  still. 

They  must  not  indulge  in  conversation  during 
an  act. 

No  one  is  allowed  to  occupy  more  than  one  seat, 
nor  use  but  one  arm-rest. 

Persons  with  the  fumes  of  liquor  on  their 
breaths  or  with  foul-smelling  pipes  in  their  clothes 
are  not  allowed  in  this  house. 

An  infraction  of  these  rules  will  receive  ade- 
quate attention  on  complaint  of  any  patron. 

By  the  publication  and  enforcement  of  some 


PUBLICITY :  GOOD  AND  BAD      loi 

such  rules  as  these,  the  play  would  be  much  more 
enjoyable,  and  delinquents  taught  lessons  that  they 
would  be  likely  to  carry  into  other  places  of  public 
assembly. 

Railroad  and  street-car  companies  might  also 
adopt  this  form  of  publicity,  much  to  the  comfort 
of  the  traveling  public.  To  the  lonely  notice  not 
to  spit  on  the  floor  they  might  well  add  several 
others  looking  to  the  welfare  of  their  patrons. 
For  example,  the  passenger  on  a  railroad  train 
might  be  warned  against  occupying  more  than  one 
seat  for  any  purpose.  Such  a  notice  might  have 
some  effect  on  the  fellow  (we  have  all  met  him) 
who  has  far  more  to  do  with  the  seat  in  front  of 
him  than  he  has  with  his  own,  throwing  his  wraps 
over  the  back  of  it,  leaning  his  arms  upon  it,  loll- 
ing in  the  faces  of  its  occupants  and  poking  his 
knees  into  the  back  of  it. 

Another  posted  rule,  for  all  kinds  of  public  con- 
veyances, might  forbid  whistling.  Is  there  any 
criminal  worse  than  the  fellow  who,  having  you 
at  his  mercy  for  perhaps  a  three  hours'  ride,  per- 
sists in  whistling,  generally  in  that  blood-curdling 
tremolo, — and  always  something  that  nobody, 
himself  included,  ever  heard  before!  Why  should 
this  nuisance  be  permitted  to  choose  such  a  time 
and  place  in  which  to  compose  his  music? 

This  idea  and  practice  of  publicity  might  pro- 
fitably be  carried  into  many  other  situations  where 
the  rights  of  the  public  are  now  being  invaded. 


CHAPTER  VII 
Fellowship 

URGING  fellowship  upon  the  people  of 
a  city  may  seem  like  Indulging  In  the 
proverbial  "hollow  mockery."  What 
with  the  dwarfing  of  the  individual  Into 
Insignificance  by  sheer  force  of  numbers,  the  Iron 
relation,  In  factory  and  store,  of  master  and  ser- 
vant, even  If  softened  by  name  Into  employer  and 
employee,  the  absorbing  pursuit  of  wealth  by  the 
former  and  the  painful  struggle  for  a  decent  living 
by  the  latter,  all  resulting  In  a  sordid,  dollar  and 
dime,  grind,  the  preachmg  of  fellowship  would 
seem  at  least  a  waste  of  time.  Said  Bishop  Spald- 
ing in  a  sermon  some  time  ago:  "Christian  apolo- 
gists from  early  days  have  claimed  that  Christian- 
ity has  destroyed  caste,  and  phrases  like  'the  broth- 
erhood of  man'  are  used  as  If  they  were  all  true 
and  meant  the  same  thing.  In  reality,  there  never 
was  a  time  when  society  was  so  divided  into  so 
many  unsympathetic  and  even  antagonistic  groups 
— we  have  white  and  black,  capitalist  and  laborer, 
plutocrat  and  proletarian,  mistress  and  maid  and 
many  others  which  designate  opposed  interests." 
Real  fellowship,  let  us  bear  in  mind,  is  comrade- 
ship, and  comradeship  is  not  based  upon  consid- 

I02 


FELLOWSHIP  103 

eratlons  of  service  or  of  success,  but  upon  an  un- 
selfish interest  in  one  another. 

Much  has  been  written  of  hitc  upon  civics  aiul 
sociology  in  their  specific  relation  to  the  city.  Most 
of  the  books  and  articles  treating  of  these  subjects 
are  almost  exclusively  devoted  to  discussions  of 
street,  park  and  playground  systems,  sanitation, 
public  service  corporations,  modern  conveniences 
and  the  like.  These  questions  have  a  proper  place 
in  any  consideration  of  municipalities,  and  the  im- 
proxements  demanded  in  respect  to  the  matters 
handled  are  certainly  desirable;  but  a  city  may  be 
a  veritable  "spotless  town"  and  provide  all  possi- 
ble conveniences  besides,  and  still  be  an  undesir- 
able place  to  live  in,  still  be  but  a  swept  and  gar- 
nished pen,  where  greed  and  selfishness  reign.  As 
for  city  conveniences,  they  are  not  unalloyed  bless- 
ings; for  instance,  the  street  car  and  automobile 
have  caused  many  a  business  man  to  give  up  walk- 
ing, much  to  the  impairment  of  his  health. 

Where  the  real  life  of  the  people  has  been  writ- 
ten about,  it  has  frequently  been  misleading  by  rea- 
son of  its  glowing  optimism.  Were  one  to  take 
the  word  of  some  of  the  social  settlement  litera- 
ture— much  of  it  written  or  inspired  by  paid 
agents  of  the  various  welfare  associations — one 
would  almost  conclude  that  every  house  in  the  city 
is  visited  and  every  inmate  looked  after;  that  there 
is,  in  conse(]uence,  no  need  unsatisfied,  no  grief  un- 
assuaged,  that,  in  short,  in  the  language  of  the  poet- 
philosopher  seated  in   his  easy  chair  "All's  right 


104  CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

with  the  world."  Occasionally,  though,  we  un- 
expectedly hear  discordant  notes  in  the  battle  for 
human  welfare,  as,  for  instance,  when,  following 
the  optimistic  sermon  of  the  preacher,  with  its  as- 
surance that  Christianity  is  sweeping  on  to  victory, 
we  listen  to  the  heart-rending  appeal  of  the  mission 
worker  from  the  same  pulpit,  that  we  bestir  our- 
selves to  save  a  lost  world.  Verily,  much  depends 
upon  the  point  of  view. 

We  all  remember  the  controversy  that  was 
waged  some  years  ago  over  the  question  whether 
we  are  a  Christian  nation.  The  newspapers  and 
the  religious  publications  gave  considerable  space, 
for  a  time,  to  this  discussion.  It  is  well  that  the 
question  was  raised  and  that  it  should  be  raised 
from  time  to  time.  The  introspection  it  compels 
is  good  for  us.  We  thus  take  stock  of  ourselves 
and  ascertain  (if  we  are  fair)  how  our  practices 
accord  with  our  professions.  The  comparison 
should  be  of  perennial  interest. 

Leaving  out  of  consideration  the  question 
whether  the  world  is  growing  worse  (Billy  Sun- 
day says  it  is  and  Ferrero  says  it  is  not),  what  is 
the  situation  in  our  land  today  with  reference  to 
applied  Christianity?  Nominally  there  are,  ac- 
cording to  the  World's  Almanac,  75,000,000 
Christians  out  of  a  population  of  nearly  100,000,- 
000.  But  how  many  real  Christians  are  there? 
How  many  that  not  only  fully  believe  the  doctrines 
of  Christianity  but  habitually  practice  the  precepts 
of  Christ?     How  many  live  as  though  they  real- 


FELLOWSHIP  165 

ized  that  "Faith  without  works  is  dead?"  Not 
to  apply  the  extreme  test  of  turning  the  other 
cheek,  or  of  giving  the  cloak  also,  it  may  be  per- 
tinently asked  how  many  of  these  75,000,000 
make  their  neighbors  feel  that  they  love  them  as 
they  love  themselves?  How  many  habitually  give — 
not  merely  to  the  Salvation  Army  kettle  at  Christ- 
mas time — to  them  that  ask?  How  many  love 
their  enemies,  or  do  good  to  those  that  hate  them? 
Again,  how  many  take  no  thought  of  what  they 
shall  eat  or  what  they  shall  wear?  Finally,  how 
many  make  us  feel  that  they  are  trying  to  lay  up 
treasure  in  heaven  instead  of  on  earth?  Precious 
few.  i 

Froude  said:  "Show  me  a  people  where  trade 
is  dishonest  and  I  will  show  you  a  people  where 
religion  is  a  sham."  It  Is  well  known  that  in  our 
country  during  the  last  ten  years  the  departments 
of  justice  in  city,  state  and  nation  have  been  busy 
with  cases  involving  the  sale  of  fictitious  mining 
stocks,  the  adulteration  of  foods  and  the  use  of 
short  weights  and  measures.  And  a  Boston  paper, 
anent  the  soaring  prices  of  food-stuffs  in  the  face 
of  record-breaking  crops  at  home  and  practically 
no  market  abroad,  felt  called  upon  recently  to 
urge,  among  many  don'ts,  the  following: 

"Don't  be  afraid  of  the  shop-keeper.  Don't 
let  him  weigh  the  paper,  twine,  tray  or  any  other 
container  and  charge  you  for  It.  It  is  against  the 
law.  Don't  let  the  butcher  rest  his  finger  on  the 
projecting  bone  and  don't  let  him  press  his  body 


io6  CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

against  the  scale.  Don't  forget  to  weigh  every- 
thing at  home.  Don't  send  children  to  the  stores 
if  you  can  help  it." 

A  great  railroad  system,  mindful  of  the  white- 
slave traffic,  so-called,  recently  caused  a  placard  to 
be  posted  in  many  of  its  stations  warning  girls 
traveling  alone  against  speaking  to  strangers,  or 
going  to  an  address  given  to  them  by  a  stranger; 
going  to  the  assistance  of  a  woman  who  apparent- 
ly faints  on  the  street;  accepting  candy,  food  or  a 
glass  of  water,  or  smelling  flowers  offered  to  them 
by  a  stranger.  In  the  light  of  these  things,  of  the 
state  of  society  with  respect  to  honesty  and  moral- 
ity that  they  imply,  is  it  not  idle,  at  least,  to  call 
ourselves  a  Christian  nation? 

The  chief  trouble  with  the  Christianity  of  today 
is  that  while  one  part  of  its  devotees  are  serving 
mammon,  the  other  part  are  so  religious,  so  ab- 
sorbed with  matters  of  doctrine,  and  apparently 
so  fearful  of  contamination,  that  they  do  very 
little  practical  good  in  the  world,  and  so  are  only 
negatively  good  themselves.  It  was  the  former 
kind  of  Christians,  it  seems  to  me,  that  Professor 
Ely  had  in  mind  when,  in  his  straight-from-the- 
shoulder  little  book.  Social  Aspects  of  Christian- 
ity, he  said: 

"Nothing  is  more  difficult,  nothing  more  re- 
quires divine  grace,  than  the  constant  manifesta- 
tion of  love  to  our  fellows  in  all  our  daily  acts, 
in  our  buying,  selling,  getting  gain.  People  still 
want  to  substitute  all  sorts  of  beliefs  and  obser- 


FELLOWSHIP  107 

vances  in  place  of  this,  for  it  implies  a  totally 
different  purpose  from  that  which  animates  this 
world.  It  is  when  men  attempt  to  regulate  their 
lives  seven  days  in  the  week  by  the  Golden  Rule 
that  they  begin  to  perceive  that  they  can  not  serve 
God  and  mammon;  for  the  ruling  motive  of  the 
one  service — egotism,  selfishness, — is  the  opposite 
of  the  ruling  motive  of  the  other — altruism,  de- 
votion to  others,  consecration  of  heart,  soul  and 
intellect  to  the  service  of  others."  And  again: 
"When  one  visits  the  leading  churches  of  New 
York  and  Boston,  when  one  forms  acquaintance- 
ship with  their  members,  with  the  very  best  will, 
it  is  simply  impossible  to  believe  that  they  are  try- 
ing to  place  the  needs  of  others  on  a  par  with  their 
own  needs.  Self  comes  first,  and  there  is  little 
apparent  effort  to  obey,  in  their  expenditures  of 
money,  the  precept  that  love  for  others  should 
hold  equal  place  with  love  for  self.  The  more 
seriously  one  reflects  upon  this,  the  longer  one 
turns  it  over  in  one's  mind,  the  more  shocking  ap- 
pears the  divergence  between  profession  and  prac- 
tice. The  average  Christian  is  of  the  world,  and 
is  governed  by  its  motives  in  his  expenditures.  To 
get  on  in  life,  to  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  wealth,  to 
be  spoken  well  of  by  those  high  in  the  ranks  of 
fashion — all  this  is  the  dominating  motive." 

It  seems,  likewise,  that  the  same  writer  had  in 
mind  the  latter  kind  of  Christians,  the  theological 
kind,  when  in  the  same  book  he  said:  "I  believe 
it  a  common  impression  that  Christianity  is  con- 


io8  CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

cerned  primarily  with  a  future  state  of  existence." 
And  again :  "We  go  to  the  Bible  with  the  notion 
that  we  are  to  learn  about  heaven  rather  than 
about  earth,  and  so  we  make  things  apply  to  a 
future  existence  which  were  intended  for  this 
world,"  Finally,  to  all  professing  Christians  the 
Professor  applies  the  "acid  test"  when  he  puts  the 
searching  question:  "Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  that 
a  man  who  claimed  to  be  a  Christian,  and  was  not 
at  the  same  time  a  philanthropist,  was  a  hypocrite 
and  a  liar?  Yet,  if  Christ  speaks  true,  this  is  un- 
doubted. Select  one  of  the  gospels,  and  read 
therein  the  words  of  Christ,  and  you  will  see  how 
Christ  comes  back  again  and  again  to  our  social 
duties."  Professor  Ely  might  well  have  presented 
the  correlative  side  of  the  case  in  a  proposition 
something  like  this,  namely:  If  the  75,000,000 
professing  Christians  of  our  country  were  real 
Christians,  there  would  be  no  involuntary  idleness, 
and  there  would  not  be  a  hungry  woman  or  child 
in  the  land.  Nay,  even  more :  Such  good  influ- 
ences would  be  thrown  around  the  erring  ones  as 
soon  in  truth  to  make  this  a  Christian  land — if  not 
in  faith,  at  least  in  works. 

No  institution  is  broad  enough  to  compass  the 
kind  of  fellowship  needed  in  the  big  city.  The 
church  is  not  adequate;  for,  even  if  it  were  more 
sincere,  more  democratic  and  more  zealous  in  its 
ministrations  than  it  is  today,  the  age-long  ques- 
tion of  creed  would  still  block  the  way.  The  com- 
municant must  subscribe  to  a  creed,  or  else  he  is 


FELLOWSHIP  109 

a  hypocrite;  and  hypocrites  are  not  desirable  com- 
panions. That  a  man  is  moral  and  kind  and  char- 
itable does  not  count  in  the  orthodox  church,  if 
be  be  known  to  disbelieve  the  cardinal  doctrines 
of  that  body,  be  they  ever  so  absurd,  as  deter- 
mined by  the  same  reasoning  that  every  intelligent 
person  apph'es  to  other  problems.  That  this  is 
true,  is  abundantly  proved  in  the  not  infrequent 
heresy  trials.  It  is  as  rare  a  sight  to  see  a  Chris- 
tion  working  hand  in  hand  with  an  unbeliever  in  a 
charitable  cause  as  it  is  to  see  a  Protestant  and  a 
Catholic  so  engaged. 

Creeds  have  undergone  changes,  it  is  true,  and 
they  will  continue  to  undergo  changes,  for  "the 
thoughts  of  men  widen  with  the  process  of  the 
suns."  Judged  by  beliefs  considered  by  the  Pil- 
grim Fathers  essential  to  salvation,  whole  congre- 
gations of  professing  Christians  of  today  would 
be  lost.  And  who  doubts  the  fate  of  Christians  a 
hundred  years  hence,  if  they  are  to  be  weighed 
by  the  orthodox  balances  of  the  present  day? 
What  with  the  industry  of  the  higher  critics,  the 
unearthing  of  illuminating  tablets  in  old  Egypt, 
Babylonia  and  Assyria,  and  the  rise  of  non-theo- 
logical cults,  like  the  New  Thought,  that  satisfy 
both  spiritual  and  temporal  needs,  the  outlook  for 
stability  in  theology  is  not  promising.  This  is  not 
denying  the  vital  value  of  the  principles  enunciated 
in  the  Decalogue,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and 
especially  the  Golden  Rule.  Many  equally  exalted 
moral  precepts  are  to  be  found,  as  scholars  well 


I  lo  CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

know,  in  the  teachings  of  Krishna,  of  Zoroaster, 
of  Lao-tsze,  of  Confucius,  of  Buddha,  and  even 
in  the  Confession  of  the  soul  before  the  tribunal 
of  Osiris,  the  god  of  ancient  Egypt.  Beside  the 
observance  and  practice  of  such  principles,  insur- 
ing right  conduct  and  noble  character,  all  merely 
theological  doctrine  is  at  best  but  a  fifth  wheel 
to  the  wagon  of  salvation.  I  do  not  underrate  the 
importance  of  an  abiding  faith  in  a  kind  but  just 
God,  whose  laws  automatically  and  inexorably 
reward  virtue  and  punish  vice.  Fortunate,  indeed, 
is  the  person  who  possesses  this  faith,  and  lives 
accordingly,  for  he  is  wise.  As  long,  however,  as 
acceptance  of  any  creed  is  made  necessary  to 
church  membership,  the  church  cannot  extend  the 
hand  of  fellowship  to  all  men.  An  honest  and 
independent  thinker  can  have  no  place  in  an  or- 
thodox church  body. 

Again,  worldly  success,  either  in  terms  of  fame 
or  of  fortune,  cannot  be  a  bond  of  helpful  fellow- 
ship; rather  is  it  the  reverse,  for  it  is  precisely 
along  this  line  that  there  is  the  greatest  cleavage, 
that  there  is  the  most  marked  separation  of  classes 
in  society  today.  The  successful  are  praised, 
courted,  honored  and  endowed  with  virtues  they 
never  possessed,  as  to  kings  in  ancient  times  was 
accorded  the  dignity  of  descent  from  the  gods; 
the  unsuccessful  are  denied  the  possession  of  any 
exalted  traits,  contemptuously  treated  or  entirely 
ignored.  And  yet  to  the  enlightened,  how  absurd 
are  these  distinctions !    How  many  successful  men 


FELLOWSHIP  III 

are  themselves  the  principal  factors  in  achieving 
their  success?  And  how  many  are  worthy  of  it? 
Not  all,  surely.  The  ways  of  success  are  mysteri- 
ous. An  analysis  of  the  careers  of  successful  men, 
where  the  real  facts  are  known,  will  show  how 
little  many  of  those  men  had  to  do  with  their  own 
success,  or  at  least  how  little  of  work  they  did  to 
win  it.  Such  an  analysis  will  confirm  us  in  the 
belief  that  "some  are  born  great"  and  "some  have 
greatness  thrust  upon  'em."  Circumstances  have 
much  to  do  in  deciding  whether  one's  life  is  to  be 
successful  or  unsuccessful.  This  truth  was  partly 
expressed  by  the  immortal  bard  who  says,  again: 

"There  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men, 
Which,   taken  at  the  flood,  leads  on  to  fortune ; 
Omitted,  all  the  voyage  of  their  life 
Is  bound  in  shallows  and  miseries." 

Occasionally  we  see  a  man  so  obsessed  with  the 
notion  that  he  alone  is  responsible  for  his  success, 
that  he  openly  claims  credit  for  creating  his  op- 
portunities. The  only  hope  for  such  a  man,  ex- 
cept in  a  hard  fall  from  his  pedestal — and  some 
have  so  fallen — is  that  he  may  happen  to  see  in 
the  dictionary  the  definition  of  the  word  oppor- 
tunity. Opportunities  come;  they  are  not  made. 
Observing  persons  have  all  wondered  at  the  phe- 
nomenal success  of  some  men — men  that  "toil  not, 
neither  do  they  spin,"  yet  gather  the  shekels  in. 
And  right  here  the  observations  of  the  brilliant 
and  versatile  Arnold  Bennett,  who,  by  the  way, 
has  the  good  sense  to  write  thin  instead  of  thick 


112  CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

books,  are  apropos:  "Most  writers  on  success  are, 
through  sheer  goodness  of  heart,  wickedly  dis- 
ingenuous. For  the  basis  of  their  argument  is 
that  nearly  anyone  who  gives  his  mind  to  it  can 
achieve  success.  .  .  .  Having  boldly  stated 
that  success  is  not,  and  can  not  be,  within  the  grasp 
of  the  many,  I  now  proceed  to  state,  as  regards 
the  minority,  that  they  do  not  achieve  it  in  the 
manner  in  which  they  are  commonly  supposed  to 
achieve  it.     .     .     . 

"No  one  is  a  worse  guide  to  success  than  your 
typical  successful  man.  He  seldom  understands 
the  reasons  of  his  own  success;  and  when  he  is 
asked  by  a  popular  magazine  to  give  his  exper- 
iences for  the  benefit  of  the  youth  of  a  whole  na- 
tion, it  is  impossible  for  him  to  be  neutral  and 
sincere.  He  knows  the  kind  of  thing  that  is  ex- 
pected from  him,  and  if  he  didn't  come  to  London 
with  half  a  crown  in  his  pocket  he  probably  did 
something  equally  silly,  and  he  puts  that  down, 
and  the  note  of  the  article  or  interview  is  struck, 
and  good-bye  to  truth  I  .  .  .  Are  success- 
ful men  more  industrious,  frugal  and  intelligent 
than  men  who  are  not  successful?  I  maintain  that 
they  are  not,  and  I  have  studied  successful  men  at 
close  quarters.  One  of  the  commonest  character- 
istics of  the  successful  man  is  his  idleness,  his  im- 
mense capacity  for  wasting  time.  I  stoutly  assert 
that  as  a  rule  successful  men  are  by  habit  compara- 
tively idle.  As  for  frugality,  it  is  practically  un- 
known among  the  successful  classes:  This  state- 


FELLOWSHIP  113 

ment  applies  with  particular  force  to  financiers. 
As  for  intelligence,  I  have  over  and  over  again 
been  startled  by  the  lack  of  intelligence  in  success- 
ful men.  They  are,  indeed,  capable  of  stupidities 
that  would  be  the  ruin  of  a  plain  clerk.  Another 
point :  Successful  men  seldom  succeed  as  a  result 
of  an  ordered  arrangement  of  their  lives;  they  arc 
the  least  methodical  of  creatures.  Naturally  when 
they  have  'arrived'  they  amuse  themselves  and 
impress  the  majority  by  being  convinced  that  right 
from  the  start,  with  a  steady  eye  on  the  goal,  they 
had  carefully  planned  every  foot  of  the  route," 

With  Mr.  Bennett's  Insight,  no  observing  per- 
son will  find  fault,  for  its  correctness  is  confirmed 
in  real  life  all  about  us.  In  the  pursuit  of  wealth, 
it  is  probably  true  that  a  hundred  work  hard  and 
fail,  to  one  who  succeeds  by  hard  work.  And  in 
the  various  positions  of  employment  the  hardest 
workers  are  almost  uniformly  the  poorest  paid — 
from  the  baggage-man  or  the  clerk  in  a  busy  store 
up  to  the  secretary  of  a  railroad  president  or  an 
Assistant  Postmaster  General.  As  for  correct  per- 
ception being  a  requisite  for  success,  we  have  the 
exclamation  of  Carlyle :  **Fie  on  your  man  of 
logic;  he  never  succeeds  1"  No,  success  is  more 
likely  to  be  with  the  blunderbuss  who  vehemently 
contends  that  two  and  two  make  five.  The  phi- 
losophy of  this  fact  is  well  expressed  in  the  dic- 
tum: *'It  is  not  ideas  that  move  and  transform  the 
world,  but  passions;  and  a  passion,  even  if  it  be 
absurd,  is  a  thousand  times  more  powerful  than  a 


1 14  CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

wise  idea." 

There  is  a  kind  of  success,  too,  sometimes  a  bril- 
liant success,  that  comes  of  appropriating  the  un- 
acknowledged help  or  ideas  of  others.  Many  an 
empty-headed  lord  has  got  through  life  very  pas- 
sably, thanks  to  the  brains  of  his  valet.  Many  a 
lazy  or  absentee  Congressman  has  got  credit  for 
efficiency,  through  the  industry  of  his  private  sec- 
retary. Sometimes  a  man  still  higher  in  office  re- 
ceives the  plaudits  of  the  people  by  appropriating 
the  bright  idea  of  some  minor  Department  Chief, 
as  witness  the  movement  for  the  conservation  of 
the  nation's  resources.  Again,  it  is  related  that 
the  day  after  President  Cleveland  ordered  the  re- 
turn of  the  Confederate  flags,  an  old  Union  sol- 
dier, then  a  guard  in  a  certain  State  Capitol,  was 
reading  of  this  order  in  the  morning  paper.  The 
Governor,  happening  to  pass  by,  the  old  guard 
read  the  order  to  him,  remarking  with  some 
warmth  that  if  he  were  Governor  of  that  State 
he  would  telegraph  the  President  that  he  would 
see  him  in  purgatory  before  he  would  return  the 
flags.  The  Governor  seized  the  idea,  sent  the 
President  some  such  message  as  the  old  guard 
had  formulated  and  got  much  glory  out  of  it. 
Even  so  great  a  thing  as  our  fundamental  law, 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  it  now 
appears,  has  been  credited  to  the  wrong  men. 
The  pamphlet  of  a  comparatively  unknown, 
though  educated  and  thoughtful  citizen  of 
Connecticut,      Peletiah     Webster,     published     in 


FELLOWSHIP  115 

1783,  four  years  before  the  Constitutional  Con- 
vention assembled,  contained  the  scheme  of  that 
great  instrument.  Hamilton,  Madison,  Wilson 
and  others  of  the  convention  used  this  pamphlet 
without  so  much  as  a  thank  you;  and  history  has 
given  them  the  glory — another  illustration  that,  as 
Napoleon  said:  "History  is  fable  agreed  upon." 
It  is  well  that  Congress  has  taken  notice  of  Web- 
ster in  the  form  of  a  bill  to  erect  a  memorial  to 
the  real  author  of  the  Constitution.  My  readers 
can  doubtless  recall  instances  within  their  own  ob- 
servation where  credit  went  to  the  wrong  per- 
son. As  Lessing  truly  says :  "Some  people  obtain 
fame,  and  others  deserve  it." 

Where  worldly  success  is  really  won  by  the 
man  himself,  as  we  say,  it  is  often  through  the 
most  reprehensible  methods,  ranging  from  nig- 
gardly parsimony  to  downright  dishonesty.  In 
either  case  there  is  nothing  to  admire  about  it. 
Two  residents  of  a  certain  city  were  one  day  rid- 
ing down  town  in  a  street  car,  and  as  they  passed 
by  a  spacious  tract  of  land  with  an  old  brick  house 
in  the  center,  one  remarked  to  the  other:  "I  ad- 
mire the  old  fellow  that  lives  in  that  house." 
"Why  so?"  asked  the  other.  "Well,  he  came  to 
this  city  a  poor  young  man,  and  by  working  hard 
and  saving  his  money  he  is  now  worth  a  million 
dollars.  He  gets  down  to  his  dry- goods  store 
in  the  morning  before  his  clerks  do  and  he  stays 
until  they  are  gone.  He  tends  right  to  his  busi- 
ness."    As  he  finished  this  encomium,    his    com- 


1 16  CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

panion  asked:  "Is  that  all?"  "Why,  isn't  that 
enough?"  was  the  reply.  "Not  for  me,"  came  the 
rejoinder.  "You  have  simply  described  a  human 
hog,  a  being  that  lives  only  for  self.  Before  I  can 
join  in  your  admiration  of  the  man  you  must  show 
me  what  he  has  done  for  his  fellow-man  other 
than  perhaps  being  a  convenience  as  a  dealer  in 
dry-goods."  In  the  ranksof  the  "self-made"  there 
are  far  too  many  like  this  dry-goods  merchant. 

Of  fame,  it  may  be  said  with  that  writer  of 
sensible  things.  Dr.  Frank  Crane,  that  it  is  "a 
gambling  affair."  "There  are  no  known  laws  for 
becoming  noted,"  says  Dr.  Crane,  "if  your  card 
turns  up  you  win;  if  the  little  ball  stops  on  your 
number  you  arc  it!  That's  all."  He  then  cites 
the  case  of  the  hard-working  lawyer,  William  A. 
Butler,  who,  though  a  worthy  person,  never  won 
fame  in  his  profession,  but  who  in  a  leisure  mo- 
ment wrote  "Nothing  to  Wear,"  which  he  sold  to 
Harper's  Weekly  for  $50.  The  poem  caught  the 
fancy  of  the  public,  and  we  all  know  the  rest;  the 
writer  of  "a  few  pages  of  society  verse,"  became 
famous.  Take  the  case  of  the  English  author 
whose  book  had  no  better  success  than  Thoreau's 
"A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimac  Rivers." 
Now  it  happened  that  Gladstone  had  his  portrait 
painted  with  a  copy  of  the  volume  in  his  hand. 
That  was  enough;  the  book  soon  found  its  way 
into  the  hands  of  everybody.  "To  feed  a  child's 
mind  upon  the  motive  of  being  famous  some  day 
is  immoral,"  again  says  Dr.  Crane.     "He  certain- 


FELLOWSHIP  117 

ly  can  be  useful,  great  and  strong  some  day,  if  he 
will,  (  ?)  but  guessing  which  of  the  three  shells 
the  pea  is  under  is  hardly  a  worthy  life's  busi- 
ness." Says  Schopenhauer:  "He  who  deserves 
fame  without  getting  it,  possesses  by  far  the  more 
important  element  of  happiness,  which  should 
console  him  for  the  loss  of  the  other.  It  is  not 
that  a  man  is  thought  to  be  great  by  the  masses 
of  incompetent  and  often  infatuated  people,  but 
that  he  really  is  great  which  should  move  us  to 
envy  his  position;  and  his  happiness  lies,  not  in  the 
fact  that  posterity  will  hear  of  him,  but  that  he 
is  the  creator  of  thoughts  worthy  to  be  treasured 
up  and  studied  for  hundreds  of  years." 

Since  both  fame  and  fortune  are  so  often  un- 
earned, or  go  to  the  unworthy;  since  the  only  thing 
that  can  be  truly  said  of  successful  or  famous  men 
is  that  they  are  fortunate,  how  little  should  success 
be  considered  in  estimating  men  1  That  it  should  be 
made  a  fetish,  as  it  is  today,  is  idolatry;  that  it 
should  be  a  barrier,  as  it  also  is,  between  men,  is 
snobbery. 

The  fellowship  that  is  needed  in  the  city  today 
is  as  broad  as  citizenship,  and  as  deep  as  kind 
hearts  can  feel.  How  false  are  tests  of  creeds  and 
of  worldly  success  as  solvents  of  social  problems 
when  put  beside  the  touchstone  of  universal  kind- 
ness I 

"So  many  books,  so  many  creeds, 
So  many  paths  that  wind  and  wind — 
When  all  this  old  world  rcallv  .lecds 
Is  iust  the  art  of  being  kind.  " 


1 18  CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

As  was  shown  in  an  earlier  chapter,  charitable 
and  philanthropic  organizations  have  been  increas- 
ing rapidly  in  our  cities  during  the  last  few  years. 
While  some  of  these  societies  are  voluntary,  being 
formed  by  men  and  women  with  a  practical  love 
for  mankind  in  their  hearts,  most  of  them  are  in- 
stitutions established  by  the  city;  and  they  are  the 
subject  of  municipal  budgets,  the  same  as  are  the 
various  departments  of  government.  Some  per- 
sons believe  that  all  philanthropic  and  charitable 
work  should  be  the  "job  of  the  city;"  and  many 
an  unreasoning  diatribe  against  large  philanthro- 
pies by  the  rich  have  we  seen  in  the  editorial 
columns  of  radical  newspapers.  "Why  leave  to 
the  kindly  impulses  of  the  conscience-stricken  rich 
the  task  of  caring  for  sick  babies,  over-worked 
mothers,  soul-hungry  folk  of  every  age  marooned 
by  poverty  in  the  crowded  cities?"  exclaims  one 
organ.  With  the  cry  of  justice,  not  charity,  these 
people  would  discourage  the  kindness  of  heart 
which  prompts  the  fortunate  (not  necessarily  the 
conscience-stricken)  to  relieve  the  distress  of  the 
unfortunate,  while  at  the  same  time  they  would 
make  the  poor  ever  more  dependent  upon  charity 
as  a  settled  policy  of  municipal  government.  Thus 
would  the  city  become  ever  more  attractive  to  the 
poor  than  would  the  country,  the  source  of  food 
supplies — the  very  thing  that,  as  the  philosophical 
historian,  Ferrero,  points  out,  was  one  of  the  chief 
causes  of  the  ruin  of  ancient  Rome. 

No  one  worth  listening  to  advocates  the  sub- 


FELLOWSHIP  119 

stitution  of  charity  for  justice.  Some  day,  per- 
liaps,  we  will  carry  the  idea  of  brotherhood  so 
lar  as  to  conceive  society  as  being  only  a  big  fam- 
ily, and,  as  at  no  family  table  would  one  member 
be  allowed  to  gather  all  the  lood  around  his  plate, 
so  neither  will  any  member  of  society,  especially 
in  a  democracy,  be  allowed  to  own  and  control  an 
excessively  large  fortune.  As  an  equalizing  meas- 
ure this  limitation  of  wealth  would  have  a  decided 
advantage  over  the  income  tax,  which  the  rich  can 
indirectly  collect  from  the  poor.  We  will  then 
go  Mr.  Carnegie  one  better  and  declare  that  in- 
stead of  it  being  a  disgrace  for  a  man  to  die  rich, 
it  will  be  a  disgrace  for  a  nation  to  permit  a  man 
to  possess  millions  of  dollars  while  millions  of 
men  go  hungry.  But  this  is  a  far  look  into  the 
future;  and  besides,  the  most  perfect  dispensation 
of  justice  will  not  insure  against  misfortune,  and 
so  there  will  always  be  a  Held  for  individual  help- 
fulness. We  are  living  in  the  present,  and  Heaven 
knows  "the  harvest  truly  is  plenteous;"  let  not  the 
laborers  be  few.  In  a  recent  article  on  poverty  in 
the  United  States,  Professor  Todd,  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Illinois  said :  "It  may  shock  our  national 
vanity,  but  it  is  true,  nevertheless,  that  from  10  to 
20  per  cent,  of  our  fellow  Americans  are  in  real 
distress;  that  20  to  30  per  cent,  are  living  con- 
stantly below  a  physical  efficiency  minimum,  and 
that  even  a  higher  percentage  do  not  receive  an 
income  sufficient  to  maintain  either  economic  or 
social  efficiency." 


120  CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

So  far  from  public  Institutions  being  all-suffic- 
ient as  an  uplifting  force  in  society,  they  are  fre- 
quently a  stumbling-block,  in  the  way  of  the  un- 
fortunate, and  a  hardener  of  the  hearts  of  the 
well-to-do.  It  may  be  laid  down  as  a  rule,  I  think, 
that  In  the  field  of  philanthropy  public  institutions 
are,  to  the  extent  of  their  establishment,  destruc- 
tive of  individual  effort  In  the  same  field.  Too 
much  reliance  is  placed  by  the  citizen  upon  the  wel- 
fare departments  of  the  city.  Many  a  man  has 
found  an  excuse  for  withholding  aid  and  comfort 
from  the  distressed  in  the  thought:  "Oh,  well,  the 
city  has  a  place  for  the  down  and  out.  Let  them 
apply  to  the  Board  of  Charities.  What  do  I 
pay  taxes  for,  anyway?" 

In  these  days  there  are  not  wanting  writers, 
who,  saturated  with  academic  notions  about  "scien- 
tific philanthropy,"  decry  all  giving  by  the  individ- 
ual to  the  needy,  thus  overruling  Christ  himself, 
who  said:  "Give  to  him  that  asketh  thee."  "Indis- 
criminate," "wasteful,"  and  "demoralizing"  char- 
ity are  favorite  words  with  these  writers.  But 
are  the  charitable  institutions  of  State  and  city 
always  wisely  managed?  Not  if  former  Governor 
Foss  spoke  truly.  In  a  message  to  the  Legislature 
he  said:  "Public  money  is  being  poured  out  with- 
out any  businesslike  and  adequate  safeguard;"  and 
he  mentioned  many  charitable  institutions  where 
there  is  no  adequate  accounting.  It  Is  said  on 
good  authority  that  It  costs  the  average  city  three 
dollars  to  give  away  five.    As  I  write  these  lines, 


FELLOWSHIP  121 

my  morning  paper  notes  a  resolution  introduced 
in  the  City  Council  of  Boston  in  its  session  yes- 
terday, asking  for  an  investigation  of  a  charitable 
organization  of  which  the  mover  said:  "Their 
own  reports  show  that  it  cost  $48,000  to  give 
away  about  half  that  sum."  So  much  for  red 
tape,  and  high  salaried  officers,  even  if  not  some- 
thing worse. 

Again,  the  optimistic  and  often  highly  colored 
newspaper  accounts  of  the  charitableness  of  a  city 
cause  kindly  disposed  persons  to  take  too  much 
for  granted,  and  think  that  enough  good  things 
are  already  provided.  About  the  time  one  news- 
paper in  a  certain  city  was  going  into  ecstasies 
over  a  "Community  Christmas" — a  lean  tree  in 
the  public  square,  covered  with  tinsel  and  filled 
with  gewgaws  and  surrounded  by  a  curious  crowd 
from  the  downtown  district — another  paper  was 
testing  out  the  fellowship  spirit  in  a  different  way. 
It  sent  out  a  reporter,  disguised  in  threadbare 
clothes,  to  see  just  how  much  of  the  "milk  of  hu- 
man kindness"  there  was  in  that  city.  In  a  whole 
afternoon  on  the  streets  the  reporter  found  but 
two  persons  out  of  twenty-five  who  were  willing 
to  help  him.  The  sum  total  of  the  relief  was  thirty- 
five  cents;  and  the  donor  of  the  quarter  fumbled 
through  all  his  pockets  in  search  of  a  dime  in- 
stead. This  tells  the  whole  story,  and  always  will. 
The  person  that  is  unwilling  to  stop  and  listen  to 
one  in  distress  (but  not  drunk)  and  help  him  if 
possible,   has  little   of  the    charity-  teachings  of 


122  CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

Christ  in  him;  and  in  a  city  made  up  of  such  peo- 
ple a  "Community  Christmas','  with  all  its  allitera- 
tive larrup,  is  but  sounding  brass  and  tinkling  cym- 
bal .  Charity  only  on  Christmas  day  is  off  the 
same  piece  as  piety  only  on  the  Sabbath  day. 

Within  recent  years  many  voluntary  organiza- 
tions have  been  formed  in  various  parts  of  the 
country  to  aid  the  poor  or  friendless.  Such  is, 
among  others,  the  Big  Brother  lodge  of  the  Elks, 
by  which  each  member  constitutes  himself  a  broth- 
er to  one  or  more  boys  in  need  of  a  friend;  and 
the  resulting  friendship  finds  expression  in  mater- 
ial aid  and  moral  influence.  Within  one  year  af- 
ter it  was  organized,  this  beneficent  department 
of  the  B.  P.  O.  E.  had  established  nine  hundred 
lodges,  and  assisted  five  thousand  boys.  What  a 
power  for  practical  good  this  society  may  become ! 

The  Gideons,  now  numbering  fifteen  thousand 
out  of  more  than  half  a  million  traveling  men, 
though  not  as  young  an  organization,  may  be 
mentioned  as  another  force  for  good  among  the 
lonely  men  and  women  of  a  big  city.  It  is  this 
organization  that  puts  the  Bible  in  every  guest 
room  in  the  hotels  of  our  country  and  does  other 
good  deeds.  Many  are  the  men — and  women  too 
— whom  the  Gideons  claim  to  have  saved  from 
lives  of  shame  or  from  suicide. 

Of  purely  local  societies  that  are  organized  to 
extend  the  hand  of  fellowship  to  the  stranger  and 
to  the  derelict,  nearly  every  large  city  can  now 
boast  one  or  more.     May  they  greatly  multiply! 


FELLOWSHIP  123 

But,  after  all,  the  individual  must  be  the  unit 
of  true  fellowship.  Just  as  the  threads  must  be 
new  and  strong  to  insure  strength  in  the  fabric, 
just  as  the  ingredients  must  be  pure  to  insure  a 
wholesome  dish,  so  must  the  individual  be  friendly 
to  insure  the  fellowship  that  is  sadly  needed  in  so- 
ciety today;  for  in  society,  as  in  nature,  a  stream 
will  rise  no  higher  than  its  source. 

All  about  us,  in  the  big  city,  are  men  and  women 
hungering  for  fellowship  as  the  destitute  hunger 
for  bread;  and  it  is  the  duty  of  every  good  citizen 
who  is  fairly  fortunate  in  having  friends  to  chum 
a  little  with  those  in  need  of  friends.  Several 
years  ago  a  president  of  the  United  States  became 
convinced  that  the  farmer  was  lonely,  so  he  ap- 
pointed a  commission  to  provide  ways  and  means 
of  amusing  him.  Of  course,  the  farmer  and  his 
wife,  with  their  grange  meetings,  their  sewing  cir- 
cles and  other  bees,  their  picnics  and  their  revival 
meetings,  laughed  at  this,  just  as  the  wage-earner 
in  the  city  laughed  at  the  same  official's  innocent 
counsel  to  have  a  large  family.  This  socializing 
commission  had  hardly  got  to  work  when  it  was 
realized  that  it  was  the  people  of  the  crowded 
city,  paradoxical  as  it  would  seem,  instead  of  the 
farmers,  that  were  lonely.  Accordingly,  since  the 
city  of  Rochester,  a  few  years  ago,  threw  open  the 
doors  of  its  public  schools  to  the  people  of  the 
various  neighborhoods  for  night  meetings,  school 
houses  in  many  cities  have  become  social  centers 
where    next    door    neighbors    may    become    ac- 


124  CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

quainted ! 

We  hear  much  of  Christian  brotherhood.  But 
we  see  very  little  of  any  kind  of  brotherhood  in 
the  city  today.  Why,  men  never  even  speak  unless 
they  are  acquainted,  but  pass  one  another  like  the 
beasts  of  the  jungle,  silent  and  intent  on  their  prey. 
A  strange  sort  of  brotherhood,  this.  A  few  kind 
words  every  day,  a  disposition  to  be  friendly, — 
how  many  a  poor  soul  might  have  risen  instead  of 
fallen  had  he  received  this  little  attention! 

In  a  certain  town  in  the  West  lived  a  mechanic 
who  was  at  the  same  time  a  musician  of  consider- 
able talent,  but  this  man  had  a  very  common  weak- 
ness ;  he  would  drink.  The  habit  finally  threatened 
to  work  his  utter  ruin.  He  lost  job  after  job  until, 
although  in  the  prime  of  life,  he  gave  up  looking 
for  work  and  became  a  street  loafer.  Every  re- 
spectable person  shunned  him.  No,  not  everyone. 
One  man  there  was,  a  blunt  though  kind-hearted 
manufacturer,  who  had  known  the  derelict  in  his 
better  days.  Now  this  good  man  did  not  avoid 
the  unfortunate,  nor  did  he  go  to  him  with  a  sanc- 
timonious air  and  remonstrate  with  him.  But  he 
went  up  to  him  and,  in  the  same  offhand  manner 
he  had  with  everyone,  extended  his  hand  and  said; 
"John,  I  need  a  skilled  man  in  the  die-room  and  I 
want  you  to  come  to  work  tomorrow  morning? 
Will  you  come?"  John  went  to  work,  and  he  has 
often  told,  during  the  many  years  of  a  sober  and 
industrious  life  he  has  since  lived,  how  it  was  his 
boss's  manner  on  that  eventful  day  that  reformed 


FELLOWSHIP  125 

him.  There  was  no  condescension  and  no  con- 
tempt, but  the  manifestation  of  confidence  that 
restored  the  man's  self-respect  and  nerved  him  for 
a  better  life. 

We  have  not  all  jobs  to  offer  the  unfortunate, 
nor,  it  may  sometimes  happen,  money  to  bestow, 
but  we  all  do  have  something  of  ourselves  to  give; 
and  in  many  cases  that  is  the  thing  most  needed. 
Of  such  a  gift,  as  of  mercy,  it  may  be  said:  "It 
blesseth  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes." 
Among  the  advantages  that  accrue  to  him  that 
thus  gives  himself  to  others,  did  you  ever  fully 
appreciate,  my  readers,  the  enlarged  and  clarified 
knowledge  of  human  nature?  This  kind  of  knowl- 
edge is  perhaps  the  most  important  of  all,  and 
well  has  the  poet  said:  "The  proper  study  of  man- 
kind is  man."  We  often  hear  people  speak  of 
learning  human  nature  from  Shakespeare  or 
Schopenhauer;  but  you  can  no  more  learn  human 
nature  from  books  than  you  can  learn  to  harness 
a  horse  from  them.  Contact  with  men  is  as  es- 
sential in  the  one  case  as  contact  with  a  horse  is 
In  the  other.  In  the  characters  in  books  we  simply 
recognize  traits  which  we  have  already  found  in 
men  and  women  by  personal  and  intimate  acquaint- 
ance with  them;  that  is  all.  What  knowledge  of 
human  nature  would  one  have  who  should  shut 
himself  up  in  his  library  and  disdain  to  mingle 
with  men?  It  would  be  very  much  like  that  Eng- 
lish scholar's  knowledge  of  French  which  he  had 
gained  from  books  only.     When  he  went  to  Paris 


126  CITY  LIFE,  ITS  AMELIORATION 

and  undertook  to  use  his  French  he  found  that  no- 
body understood  him. 

Another  thing  we  learn  by  this  gift  of  ourselves 
in  fellowship  with  men,  be  they  ever  so  lowly,  is, 
that  there  are  diamonds  in  the  rough  which  need 
only  to  be  polished  by  friendly  contact  to  shine 
with  luster.  In  the  city,  more  than  anywhere  else, 
superior  worth  may  lie  latent  and  buried  for  want 
of  an  opportune  circumstance  to  evoke  it. 

"Full  many  a  flower  is  born  to  blush  unseen, 
And  waste  its  sweetness  on  the  desert  air." 

We  often  read  in  the  daily  press  of  the  man 
who  has  won  a  Carnegie  medal  for  some  heroic 
act.  His  name,  it  may  be,  is  on  every  tongue. 
And,  quick  to  turn  his  fame  into  fortune — no  mere 
sprig  of  laurel  goes  in  these  money-mad  days — 
he  closes  a  contract  with  a  vaudeville  manager. 
On  the  day  before  the  heroic  act,  the  hero  was  a 
mere  nobody,  so  far  as  reputation  went.  And  yet, 
all  the  while,  he  had  in  his  make-up  the  qualities 
of  a  hero;  it  needed  only  the  occasion  to  call  them 
into  action.  Among  the  men  that  pass  us  every 
day  on  the  street  are  many  such.  Opportunity — 
a  runaway,  the  cry  of  "a  man  overboard,"  or  a 
frantic  woman  at  the  window  of  a  burning  build- 
ing— is  the  only  thing  necessary  to  convert  these 
prosaic  men  into  lauded  heroes. 

And  there  are  heroes  whose  heroism  never  gets 
into  the  limelight.  Such  are  the  fathers  and  moth- 
ers who,  on  a  small  income,  for  which  they  drudge 


FELLOWSHIP  127 

unceasingly,  and  at  a  sacrifice  of  themselves,  not 
only  manage  to  keep  the  wolf  from  the  door,  but 
rear  children  into  educated  and  upright  men  and 
women.  Such,  again,  are  the  little  newsboys  who, 
no  matter  what  the  weather  may  be,  are  out  on 
the  dirty  and  noisy  streets  all  day  and  often  far 
into  the  night. that  their  accumulated  pennies  may 
help  support  the  home,  in  which  perhaps  there  is 
a  drunken  or  invalid  father.  And  such,  lastly,  are 
those  shop  girls  who,  perchance  alone  in  the  world, 
on  a  sum  smaller  than  a  club  man  spends  for 
cigars,  manage  to  keep  body  and  soul  together  and 
in  the  state  of  purity  that  God  meant  for  them. 

1  hese  are  the  souls  with  whom  we  may  possibly 
have  fellowship,  if  we  will  but  take  the  pains  to 
look  around  us.  And  they  are  immeasurably 
more  worthy  than  are  many  whose  favor  we  court 
— more  worthy  on  their  own  account  and  on  ours 
as  well. 

It  is  not  possible  to  know  people  as  well  in  the 
big  city  as  in  the  small  town,  and  for  reasons  al- 
ready set  forth  in  this  book,  but  by  such  an  ac- 
quaintance with  them  as  is  possible,  we  may  at 
least  ameliorate  their  condition  and  our  own.  Then 
let  us  have  more  of  good  cheer,  more  of  kindly 
interest  and  more  of  praise  for  efforts  well  meant, 
to  the  end  that  life  in  the  sordid  city  may  not  be 
as  soulless  as  it  is  today. 


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